Diary of a Teenage Superhero

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When the alarm goes off, it’s like a bomb exploding in my head. To make matters worse, it’s accompanied by the flickering of fluorescent lights in the ceiling. One second I’m sound asleep in complete darkness. The next I feel like a bug being studied under a magnifying glass.

  I blearily examine the alarm clock.

  5.30am

  Oh, God.

  The previous night I found myself housed in a dorm room with Chad and Dan while Brodie and Ebony were given a room across the hall. Compared to our previous penthouse accommodation, this place is more like Guantanamo Bay. Everything is concrete. There are no windows because we are still a hundred feet underground. The beds are reinforced steel bunks. There are no pictures on the walls. Even the television looks like it was built during the cold war.

  I had half expected to find pajamas made to look like orange jumpsuits, but they turn out to be military green tops and shorts.

  As I sit up in the bed I find myself wondering one thing.

  What have I gotten myself into?

  I suddenly hear the shower running. I look blearily over at Dan and Chad who look even worse than me.

  A computerized voice emanates from a loud speaker built into the ceiling.

  “The shower provides hot water for three minutes,” it informs us. “After that it converts to cold water only.”

  You’ve got to be kidding.

  The three of us charge madly for the shower, but Chad gets there first. I don’t think he’s ever showered with two guys watching him.

  “What’re you looking at?” he asks, rubbing soap all over him.

  “Two minutes,” the computer intones.

  “Out!” I yell. “Get out!”

  We virtually drag him out by the hair. I jump in next, promising I’ll give Dan his full minute. Before I’m even half washed, though, the computer announces the shower has one minute of hot water remaining.

  Dan glowers at me.

  “Aw, hell,” I say, climbing out.

  I dry myself and drag on clothes. As soon as Dan finishes his shower, cold and shivering, the computer tells us breakfast will be served in five minutes in Kitchen Twelve. I remember the location from Anna’s tour the previous evening. It’s about two hundred feet down the hallway.

  The computer continues.

  “Breakfast will begin at five forty-five am and will conclude at five fifty-five am.”

  I have to think really hard about what the computer has said because my head is still in bed while the rest of me is only pretending to be awake.

  “That’s ten minutes,” I say aloud. “Ten minutes for breakfast.”

  We charge out of there and bump into the girls in the hallway. They look like they’ve just escaped a flooded building. Neither of them has combed their hair. Ebony’s is still dripping wet.

  “We had three minutes for both of us to shower!” Brodie yells.

  “Three minutes?” There’s some sort of inequality here. “Between the two of you? That means you had an entire minute and a half per person. We only had a minute!”

  “Bad luck!”

  No one speaks during breakfast. There are three attendants bringing food out to us like clockwork. And there’s plenty of it. Sausages, eggs, bacon, toast, oat meal. The list goes on. We find we’re stuffing it in as fast as we can. Who knows where our next meal is coming from?

  This is insane. I remember the nice abandoned warehouse I shared with Brodie that first night. The cold, damp building with rats eyeing us hungrily from the corners. It was like heaven as compared to this. I catch her eye and I’m sure she’s thinking the same thing.

  “Remember the good old days?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head and a lock of hair bounces in front of her eyes.

  “Just eat,” she replies.

  Our drill instructor turns out to be a large black man by the name of Mr. Henderson. It seems that no one here has first names. I don’t think his mother ever taught him how to smile. If she did, his knowledge of it is hidden beneath a permanent scowl. He takes us outside via an elevator housed in a concrete bunker that opens up to reveal a large field. Rolling hills surround it on all sides. It’s all very picturesque.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  He ignores me completely. “I will be your physical exercise instructor. I have three weeks to beat you recruits into shape. That’s not much time. That means you’ll have to follow my every command if you want to be ready in time.”

  “What if I don’t plan to be ready?” Chad asks, smiling.

  What is it with this guy?

  “You don’t want to find out,” Henderson says.

  I believe him.

  We start with a three mile run following a track through the woods. It was a beautiful morning in a beautiful part of the country. How horrible to ruin it with exercise. By the time I’m half way around I’m regretting eating so much at breakfast. As we get back to the bunker I’m pretty sure I’m about to see breakfast again at close hand.

  After that we move onto pushups and sit ups. Around about that time breakfast makes a return visit for me, Dan and Ebony. Chad takes a little longer to crack. It’s on the second run that he empties his stomach. Brodie makes it through everything unscathed.

  I realize around about this time that Brodie has a natural advantage in all these exercises. Whereas the rest of us have powers that involve the manipulation of external elements, her power is purely physiological.

  Damn.

  We stop for lunch and this time the meal break is a far more leisurely affair. No one speaks. Dan doesn’t eat anything. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen him reject food. Even Chad barely touches a thing.

  We all get separated after lunch. My personal trainer is a man named Mr. Brown. He’s like Henderson, but a smaller and stockier version – if such a thing is possible. He’s dressed in a tracksuit like a personal trainer, but he looks like a military guy. He’s well versed in all my powers. He begins by getting me to produce shields of various sizes. Small. Large. Then he gets me to morph them into different shapes.

  I move onto flying. He doesn’t get me to fly any great distances. Quite the opposite. He hones me in covering short areas, but doing it with skill. Sometimes I’m just hovering bare inches above the ground. At other times I fly upside down and do complete somersaults. After I’ve done this for an hour I remind him I’m capable of flying quite high.

  “I’m well aware of that, recruit,” he informs me.

  It seems he has either forgotten my name or doesn’t intend to use it.

  “You need to polish your basic skills before you move onto advanced moves.” He gives me the closest thing to a smile I’m likely to see. “Baby steps, recruit. Baby steps.”

  The day’s activities end with me creating air weapons. First I make balls and throw them. Then I move onto darts. In the last hour he shows me pictures of a Japanese throwing star called a shuriken and gets me to create and throw them at targets.

  “So when do I get a break?” I ask him.

  “You can relax when I say you can,” he replies, smiling.

  That’s not a pleasant smile.

  By the time I head back to the facility for dinner I’m just about falling over my own feet. I’m physically and mentally exhausted. I stumble into the dining room and the catering attendants start piling food in front of me. The others look the same. Poor Dan looks like he’s about to pass out. Ebony looks ill. Even Chad looks tired.

  Brodie…well, what should I say?

  “How was your day?” she asks me brightly, throwing back food like she hasn’t eaten for three days.

  “Great…great…”

  “Feel like a run after dinner?” she suggests. “Nothing like a quick ten mile jog to polish off a perfect day.”

  She’s so evil.

  After dinner we have free time. For every one of us, even Brodie despite her suggestion of another run, free time equals sleep time
. We get shown the location of an entertainment room with a wide-screened television. There’s even a games room with the latest computer hardware, but no one shows the slightest interest.

  Later, I remember climbing into my pajamas. I remember falling into bed. I remember closing my eyes.

  I don’t remember anything after that.