Chapter 1

It was the nightmare that triggered me. I had just watched Jaws on some re-run channel, and like the idiot I am went to bed right after. I could have watched some cartoons to clear my head, maybe read the book for my English class, but no, I went straight to bed.

The dream started pretty nice. I was down at the lake, swimming with my family. We had this ridiculously giant surfboard that we were using like a diving platform, and I would fall backwards off it, float down under the water, then rise back up on the other side. It was like I was playing at trying to surprise somebody, like they would be freaked out because I could be on one side of the giant surfboard, then on the other. But when I came up for air on the other side, they weren't there; they'd all left, gone swimming back to shore while I was underwater. Instead of me surprising them, they'd surprised me. Of course I had to take the surfboard back to shore all by myself now. I grabbed it and started kicking, but this was a really big surfboard and I was getting tired quick.

A shark appeared. Oh, and not just any shark, but a Hammerhead, with those big wide heads and eyes that are really far apart. It was gliding through the water, all peaceful and relaxed, and so I attached the leg rope from the surfboard to its tail. The shark would pull the board back to shore, and I would be dragged along behind for a ride, easy as pie. The plan made sense at the time.

The hammerhead turned around in the water to see what was going on, what it was dragging, and then it saw me. It got pissed! It started thrashing in the water, darting from side to side, so that we got turned all the way around. I'm scared now, I start kicking for the dock, swimming on my back with my head up, watching as the monster comes tearing after me snapping these huge elongated jaws, but slowed down by the surfboard. And I know that if I would only turn over, I could do a crawl-stroke and go way faster, easily beat the shark to the dock and get up on safe dry land. But I can't. There's something inside of me that tells me, if I turn over and stop watching the hammerhead chase me, it'll catch up easily and swallow me in a few big bloody bites. Because it's only my watching it chase me that lets me swim fast enough to keep ahead of it. That made sense too. And so I kick, harder and faster, my feet aching from exertion, red-hot, burning-hot!

I woke up after that. I laughed it all off, and untangled myself from the blankets that I'd been kicking in my sleep. There were these big burn marks in the blanket where my feet were, with holes that went right through. And on the wall were scorch marks, big ones, blackened and still smoking a little.

---

It's been a long time since that dream, but I still remember it perfectly. And those scorch marks are still there, behind the white paint I snuck in from the garage to hide them. The holes in my blanket would have been harder to explain, so I hid the damaged evidence in my closet and started using a spare. If Mom ever finds it, she'll hopefully think it was from when I first started smoking, a first-time screw-up. The smoking happened later, in high school. Being able to light a cigarette on fire with my mind was really all the reason I needed to start, and it gave me something to do with the whole oral fixation thing I have going. I still put a pen between my teeth when I'm trying to solve a really tough equation in class, indoors where I can't light up. My mom thinks I started smoking because of my friends in high school, but really it's the other way around. I was absolutely crazy by the time I got to high school, because the powers were showing up more frequently and I was really starting to freak out. I'd be doing my homework before bed, and suddenly these beams would shoot from my eyes and burn up my assignment. I'd flush the toilet at school, and it was like a cherry bomb had gone off in the pipes, water spewing from everywhere. Kate from Algebra class would walk up to the board to solve a problem, and this stiff breeze would start blowing in through the window, tossing all the papers off our desks. I was turning into some sort of walking, talking, pubescent weapon of mass destruction, with no control over any of it.

So like I said, when I got to high school I was one very crazy white kid, and most everyone could tell. I had a rep for things blowing up around me, and it was soon rumored that I was some sort of explosives expert, that I had hand-made grenades lining the floorboards in my room. None of the normal people wanted to hang out with me, none of my friends from middle school would even talk to me because I was such a nut. I started smoking as soon as I could buy a pack, hoping they would slow me down and give me even an ounce of control over the weird things I could do. They didn't, it took years to finally be able to toss a ray of energy where and when I wanted, but those smokes finally cemented my image in school as the crazy kid who brought explosives to school that the teachers could never find, who smoked in-between classes religiously, and who wore big trench-coats with too many pockets. Those thick leather trench-coats are still the only thing I can find that don't burn through when my arms start burning with honest-to-goodness fire that doesn't go out no matter how much I try to smother it.

With my image set in stone, only the people on the fringes of the high school social structure would approach me, trying to find out if I was like them, an ally to their philosophy. The hackers were the first, thin, heavily-bearded guys also wearing trench-coats with big black hats; they left me alone when they learned I didn't know a thing about computers except how to turn them on and surf the web. The goths approached me next, but I wasn't wearing that trench-coat because I was a vampire trying to avoid sunlight so they lost interest. Finally came the punks, the rebels without a cause, the people who looked and acted just like me but for much different reasons. I fell in with them, because by then I was starved for friendship and these guys didn't care that I was some sort of maniac, pyro- or otherwise. They stole cases of beer from their parents' basements for parties every Thursday night, smoked more than I did, and couldn't wait to "set off, get out of here, leave this lame town and its lamer rules and lamest people." Yeah, these guys made up words like "lamest;" they were rebelling against Webster's Dictionary too, I guess. But they weren't all bad. Some of the girls were pretty hot, though I never got my act together enough to try with any of them, and some of the people I talked to felt just as lost and confused as me, albeit for way different reasons. I shot out energy from strange places, and these guys complained about their parents taking away their allowance or having deadbeat dads. Still, those guys were good for me, they kept me sane; I could go hang out with them, just be the silent-and-dangerous guy while listening to them gripe, and feel like I belonged.

During senior year the letter arrived. A Mr. Larabee, some super rich old guy I thought, wanted to give me a scholarship to this super-exclusive Universities, all paid for, full tuition, room and board. I just had to pay for books and I would be able to go for any degree I wanted. This place, West Wellington University, had some of the best professors in the world, offered nearly every degree imaginable, and was not at all a school my parents could have payed for. I called the number listed on the letter, and reached Mr. Larabee's receptionist. She assured me it wasn't a joke. She then assured my parents it wasn't a joke, first one and then the other. She told us, in this really professional and soothing way, like she'd given the same speech to a bunch of people already, that my high grades and low socio-economic bracket had placed me in a special list, a list from which Mr. Larabee picked a few names every year to sponsor through this college, his old alma mater. I did have high grades, not the best in the school but pretty high above average, and my parents weren't exactly rolling in green. And quick as that, my college was chosen and my life for the next four or so years was set.

James, the conspiracy nut in my circle of friends, warned me about the school. The others all congratulated me, told me that it was pretty cool that I had "gotten some old fart to pay your way," and that I should remember them while I was living the high life. A few predicted I'd turn into The Man, going to such an upper-crust school, but the others just threw Cheez-Its at them. James cornered me afterwords, and in his permanently-guilty whisper told me that I should be careful. He'd heard that some pretty weird things went down at this place, that there were people who could do some pretty strange stuff, none of which ever made the news but would change the world if it did. To him and his buddies in "the Info Underground," this place was some sort of Area 51 but bigger, and the worst was a dorm on campus, a place called Psi House. He scuttled away after that, but the experience shook me up a little. After all, that scholarship I was getting? The one thing I had to do for it was live at this Psi House place.

I aced my finals, and spent the rest of the summer waiting in mad anticipation to go to this fancy college. I thought maybe I'd go for a Math degree; ever since Kate and that windy Algebra class, I'd really liked Math, and so it was the obvious way to go for my degree. I briefly considered Business and Economics, or maybe Law; the truth is, I'm pretty good at anything smarts-based, and my horizon was wide open with choices. I actually had so many ideas about what I would focus on that I couldn't decide between them, so I just stuck with Math because it was the first thing I had considered.

Summer break had always been the best time to work on figuring out my powers, and it was that summer that I really got a handle on them. If I concentrated on just the tip of my finger, while thinking about Gerdal's Linear Models, I could shoot out a little beam, about the width of a pencil and up to nearly thirty feet away before dissipating, that could burn or freeze or zap whatever it hit, and even this one that didn't look like anything but was really good for breaking stuff. I could choose what kind of beam just by thinking about it. I'd only been able to do fire before, and only on the tip of my finger, the perfect little lighter; I would do it in front of my friends and pretend like I was a stage magician, acting like I had palmed an actual lighter. People will believe anything if it fits their vision of reality better than the truth. I spent that summer burning up fallen leaves and freezing little patches of water down at the lake, when I wasn't hanging out as much as possible with my friends, trying to believe I was just a normal kid.

Then the summer was over, and I packed up and got on a bus. This place was several states away, and so only a plane or a two-day car trip could get me there or back home. I don't have a car, I don't really trust myself not to unconsciously burn up the engine or something, but I really wanted to get to this place by myself for this first time so I convinced my parents to let me take a bus. The bus ride was as hard as you might think, sitting in a vibrating heap of aluminum for hours at a time with only a few scheduled rest stops, the only times I was able to take a smoke break; but then again, that bus trip was the first time I'd been away from home without my family and that all by itself was great. Like my friends would say, I was getting out of there, out of that sleepy town. West Wellington U wasn't in the middle of a big metropolis or anything, it's actually kind of secluded up in some mountain valley, but they supposedly get really fast internet and cable, when it isn't cut off by "atmospheric disturbance" or some gibberish, and there's this mid-sized city called Keystone nearby, a really nice college town with a bunch of coffee shops and theater houses and fast food places.

It was on that bus that I met Shoden. He got on when we were nearly halfway there, in the middle of the night, with almost as much luggage as me. He's this Asian-looking kid, black hair, kind of thin even compared to the anorexic kids I knew back home, and carries this big long tube strapped to his back wherever he goes. He told the bus driver that it was his easel, and even opened it up to show him some folded-up wooden thing inside, but when he sat down in the seat across the aisle and one up from mine and I asked him what was really inside it, he said it also held his family's prized ancestral sword in this smug, formal voice. I could tell he thought he was better than me, but I had my own secrets and didn't care how bad-ass he thought he was.

"So Mr. Samurai, where you going? Wellington, like me?" He looked at me with this surprised look, then he got smug again.

"Indeed. I am to be the recipient of a scholarship, which will pay for my tutelage there. It is quite the honor. And you? Well-off parents perhaps?" He said "well-off" like a curse.

"Me?! No, I've got something like that too. Hm, is yours like this maybe?" I showed him the letter Larabee sent me, which I was keeping close so I can show to the greeter at this Psi House, and he got all bug-eyed. Showing the guy he wasn't such hot shit was way too much fun. He nodded, and pulled out a similar letter from a pocket on his easel-case. We compared them; they're nearly identical, a form letter for goodness' sake. Apparently this Mr. Larabee is rich enough to support a few kids every year, not just one like I thought. There was one difference; on his, instead of mentioning high grades, it said something about his athletic excellence. He noticed the difference on mine too.

"Forgive me for saying this, but you don't look like the type to get good grades. My apologies for underestimating you." He gave this little head bow, respectful but also kind of quick, like a snake.

"It's cool man, I know I don't much look like a brain. So, you know what you're going for? They don't give out sword-fighting degrees, do they?"

"Hah, no, I am going to study art. This really is an easel on my back, and I am well-informed in its use. But I received this degree through winning several track and field competitions, as well as kendo tournaments, some of which were regional, swimming, basketball and baseball, as well as setting several records at my school for various other athletic activities … or at least that is what I have been told is the reason for my winning this scholarship. I carry my family's sword because it is my destiny to do so, as my father's successor."

"Well, then go ahead and forgive me this time, because you don't much look like any athlete I've ever seen. I think even I have more muscles than you, and I suck at PE!"

He looked at me with this appraising look, like he was trying to decide how much to tell me, then said, "True, I may not look it, but trust me when I say I can do without such musculature. Such activities are ten percent physical fitness, and ninety percent determination and willpower. And those, unlike cumbersome muscles, I have in spades."

"Okay, I can understand that." This guy is like my opposite, I could tell, but then he's going to Psi House so I should probably get to know him better. "I'm a Math guy myself, at least for now, but if the Profs at this place don't know what the Quasi-Vorn Theorem is I might need to either start teaching them a thing or two, or go with a different subject."

"Excuse me, the What Theorem?" Apparently this guy's never read through a quantum theoretical account of practical upper-echelon physics before! I started explaining what the theorem says, and what it entails, which is fascinating because … I had to explain it again in simple terms, and then even simpler terms, but he was having a hard time grasping it. Finally I tried a crude basketball analogy, and he started nodding his head slowly. We arrived at the next bus transfer before I was done, and we went for adjacent seats so I could continue explaining.

---

These mountains are frigging huge! I'm from some pretty flat area myself, and maybe that's why they just look too big to believe, towering over us as the bus drives between two sheer cliff sides, on a small but well-kept two-lane road that looks like it must have been carved right out of the ridge between the two mountains. Shoden echoes my thoughts, and we both stare in amazement out the window at what we're seeing. Thick veins of some kind of rock flow across the walls on either side of us, like sideways paths following a zigzag pattern up and down the face. But after only a few moments of driving the walls vanish behind, and rocky mountainside slopes down around us like we're coming out of a theme park ride. Ahead of and below us, there's this big-ass valley, with Keystone to the left and West Wellington to the right, Keystone surrounding WWU like a big crescent moon. The mountains rise up all around; this place looks more cloistered then I thought, but at least it looks pretty nice from up here. I can see a small airport to one side, and some big malls I think, and tons of big houses spotting the place, and … and now we're down in the city itself, in among the little shops sitting beside stately manors and little brown-stone houses next to shopping malls with big parking lots. The town is packed close together in this valley, a real close-nit community I bet, maybe too close for some people.

The bus comes to a stop at a small bus station and the driver wishes us luck. He seems to know we'll be attending the University, and tells us that someone will be along to get us soon. There's not too many people on the bus by now and they all get off here, including one or two tired-looking professor-types and a few joking guys who look like they're returning students. Me and Shoden left them alone when they got on the bus a little while back, and they seemed content to do the same. The prof-types go towards a small parking lot to the side, and the rest of us all wait together, until a … well, it's a limo, I have to say it, we are being picked up from the bus station by a frigging limo. All our luggage goes into a trunk that must be taking up half the length of the car, and the jokers get in near the front. When Shoden and I try to follow them, the driver shoos us out.

"No, the car is not for you, please wait, your luggage will be taken up to your rooms, goodbye!" And the driver zooms off, speeding into traffic with a maneuver that makes me glad I'm not on board. Still, where's our ride? That jerk better not have just stolen all our stuff!

Another vehicle pulls up a few minutes later, a van that is way less fancy than the limo before it. On the side, spray-painted on, it reads "The Psi House-Mobile" in big pink letters. A smoking hot woman steps out, shakes both of our hands, and ushers us inside. We can't say anything to this red-haired goddess, and I believe wholeheartedly that no straight man in this world could upon first meeting her. After closing our door and entering the car through the driver's side, she turns around in her seat and graces us with a smile that must make angels weep, and I don't even believe in all that religious rigmarole. This is a woman to make men believe in angels. I try to sneak a peak at her hand for a ring, or maybe just a quick glance down her shirt, but I can only see her head from where she's sitting in the front.

"Hi boys, nice to meet you. I'm Sen, your Residence Director, and I'll be driving you up to the school today. You must be," she looks down at what must be a clipboard, I'm certainly not wasting any time checking for sure, squints a little, which makes her eyes crinkle up in the most wonderful way, and then looks back up at us. "You're Shoden, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, and you must be Trevor?" We nod, well, I nod and if that bastard Shoden is a man he's also nodding. Little jerk probably wants to take my woman, I'm pretty sure I have a claim on her now, I saw her first. She looks at us, then laughs, like bells ringing, and turns back to the front. I can't see her anymore. Dammit I can't see my angel anymore! Her voice floats back from the front as she starts the car, "Sorry boys, guess I came on a little strong there."

We pull out into the road, she's a great driver, the ride is smooth as silk, giving me the concentration I need to plan. If she is married, I can beam her husband, then put a gun in his hand, make it look like he was threatening me; or, or, better yet, make it look like he was going to hurt her, and when I "save" her she'll be grateful, yes, very grateful. I'll have to explain the hole my beam will leave in him, a hot poker would make a similar wound, maybe this can all happen near a roaring fireplace, yes, that sounds nice and dramatic. She's speaking, must listen. "Now, there's a few other Freshmen for Psi House arriving this year, a couple more kids like yourselves, so don't think you two are the only ones." There are more?! More rivals for her attention!? This is terrible! I'll need a plan to keep them at bay. "And Psi House is a wonderful place, I know you'll love it, the Alpha and Gamma dorms which we're nearest to are a little more ritzy but we have a really strong sense of community at Psi." There are whole dorms of people living nearby, full of people who may covet her as well?! I will need to construct a wall; Shoden says he is athletic, the conniving jealous ignoramus, perhaps I can get him to do so, then get rid of him when he's no longer needed!

"And if there's one thing you really need to understand about West Wellington, it's that the place is absolutely loaded! You'll notice you all have single rooms and your own bathrooms, with a weekly cleaning service, all part of the package deal Mr. Larabee has given you. The food at the cafeteria? To die for! That's practically the main reason why I decided to work here after graduating, and the school just loved what a people person I am so they put me in charge of my old dorm. I guess I don't really need to tell you that I'm a Psi House scholarship recipient too, huh? I'm really one of the more obvious ones; just wait until you meet Thom, you wouldn't think it with him but he's just good at keeping it secret. But West Wellington! The school was originally built as a private getaway for the rich and famous, like a big retreat where they could just hide from the world. You'll notice there aren't too many entrances into the valley, and the ways in and out can be closed off easy as pie in case of an emergency. But later, they, the school's founders I mean, realized the hide-away nature of this place wasn't what their customers really wanted, and so they built the school, staffed it with the best they could get, and pretty soon we became a thriving college town! You'll notice that most of your classmates from other dorms, if they stay at a dorm at all, will be a lot richer than you and probably a little snobbish, but don't let it bother you. You guys deserve to be here just as much as they do, remember that!" She turns her head back to us for just a moment to grace us with another dazzling smile, before turning back to the road and again vanishing from my now twice-cursed sight, but for a few strands of hair sticking to the side of the seat, tempting me to re-align them, or perhaps casually stroke them.

"But here I am gabbing away, and I haven't even given you boys a chance to talk. So, any big questions, concerns? It may not seem like it, but I'm a great listener!" She laughs happily, and we join in nervously, and I want to tell her I love her, that we can just drop off Shoden wherever, then drive back through the mountains and away from here, far away from this town that doesn't deserve her, that can't appreciate her! But we're stopping, the van is is coming to a halt in a small parking lot, I look around in a daze to see we're already there, at a large brick building with what looks like it's three or four floors, a few columns spaced around the place that give it kind of an austere look, and ivy growing up and over the north side. I quickly look back to the front in a panic, looking for those tell-tale hairs, but the side door is opening and she's extending a graceful palm to help us out. We get out slowly, I treasure those moments our hands touch, I want to keep on holding them, but she lets go and goes to stand by a … a man! A threat! He speaks, his voice an arrow aimed at my heart, but I don't hear it, because she has grabbed his hand enthusiastically and is … she's hugging him now, holding him close, and now walking away, turning the corner around the building, and gone, gone, gone forever. My head is groggy, my eyes seem to be tearing up, if I could just move I could chase … chase after her? Why would I … ?

"Can you hear me now? Wow, she got you two hard. That's my Sen, never going easy on the new kids. Now, I'm going to get this over with first, yes, Sen and I are married, if you want to kill me or something we can do that, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to but you're free to try. No? Excellent. I'm Thom, I'll be showing you to your rooms." He's tall, a little gaunt, and definitely weary-looking. Any more than that, I couldn't really say at the moment because my head is pounding like a big drum is being thrashed inside it. It's like a hangover, except there's no urge to vomit and the splitting headache is a few times worse. He reaches out to shake our hands, and I manage to slide my hand towards his in what is not the best first impression I have ever given. Shoden manages a little bow, he looks in about as much pain as me, but he seems to be handling it better. He gives a little bow to me as well, and speaks up in a pained voice.

"I believe I owe the both of you a most sincere apology. Moments ago I was ready to do grievous harm to any man who dared even set eyes upon that woman, and yet now I am wondering why. Please, explain this situation. What has happened to me?" Thom sighs, and leads us over to a small park-style table with wooden benches on both sides. When he speaks, it is slow and careful.

"I don't suppose either of you were told the real reason you got the scholarship? First of all, this school is not your average university. You can probably guess that, what with how secluded we are up in these mountains. Yes, it is actually a school for the children of the rich, and most of your classmates will be worth more than the net worth of whatever town you may have grown up in. I tell you this because most of the students going to Wellington are snobs, to be blunt about it, and it's a good idea to watch what you say to them. Secondly, Mr. Larabee? You'll probably meet him tomorrow night, he's a General in the U.S. Army. This dorm is a government military project, with its main purpose being the gathering and holding of college-age kids with psionic abilities. They keep you here for four years, study you from afar, and you get a good education and a few square meals out of the deal. You're free to go when you get your degree, and of course you can go home for breaks; all they want is to know what you can do, so that if you ever decide to become a super-terrorist they can take you down.

Other than that, we're not much different from what Sen probably told you in the ride over. We all know what we are, we've managed to form a nice little community around that shared knowledge, and we'd like it if you joined us in pretending that the government isn't spying on our every movement. We have some special after-hours workshops where you can work on whatever talents you have with people who've been where you are now, most everyone here is really understanding if you accidentally blow something up, and we pride ourselves on holding some of the best and truly strangest parties imaginable. You haven't been to a real party until you've been to one with Rick keeping us all in zero-g, I can promise you that." He smiles, a little awkwardly, and waits for us to speak.

It's like a curtain's been lifted. I can't believe I didn't see it all before. But it makes so much sense. Any government, finding out about people who could do things like I could, would want to keep tabs on me, would want to watch me and make sure I really wouldn't turn into the weapon I had always feared I was becoming. Keep watch? No, they were studying us, they probably wanted to figure out how we did it, shot rays or caused wind or … "Hey, what do you do, Mr. … Thom?" He smiles thankfully, glad perhaps that I was so little shaken. Shoden looks like he's suffering a silent nervous breakdown beside me.

"Just Thom is fine, the name's Thom Baker but when people call me "Mr. Baker" I just think they mean my father. And I've been at this a while, so I'm not really tied down to one discipline. But I guess I'm best at shielding, from all the attacks on my life by men, and a few women, after my wife. She's a telepath, and is always sending out an aura that make people attracted to her. It's something she does to get people to warm up to her, but she tends to overdo it, paralyze rather than charm them. Trust me, once you get to know her it stops being so powerful, and after that she's not so hard to be around. Now then, allow me to show you around your new home-away-from-home. And welcome to your first year here at West Wellington's Psi House."