Chapter 1: The Outprocessing

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1400 Defense Pentagon

Washington, D.C. 20301-1400

OFFICIAL NOTICE OF CONSCRIPTION

Document ID: DOD-NSA-2020-0415-TA

Date: April 15, 2020

To: Thomas Ross

Address: 1245 Beacon Street, Apt. 4B,

Los Angeles, CA 90015

Status: STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Mr. Ross,

This notice informs you that monitoring systems of the United States Department of Defense have recorded the manifestation of anomalous abilities in your person, hereafter referred to as “Awakening”, classified under National Security Directive No. 44-B. This event was registered on April 15, 2020 at 16:43 local time.

In accordance with the Extraordinary Ability Registration Act and Title 10 of the United States Code, from the moment the Awakening is registered you are transferred to the category of special military reserve. Your civil legal capacity becomes limited by obligations to the state in matters concerning national defense.

Your obligations:

You are required to report to the Washington State Induction Center for a medical examination, threat level assessment, and military registration.

Special conditions:

Taking into account your status as the sole provider of your household, under the Household Protection Amendment you are granted a deferment period of 90 (ninety) calendar days to settle personal and financial matters. The deferment period expires on July 14, 2020.

Liability warning:

Failure to appear by the assigned deadline, attempts to conceal the level of your abilities, or crossing state borders without written authorization from a military commandant will be treated as desertion during a state of emergency. This offense carries criminal liability in the form of imprisonment in a specialized maximum security facility for a term from 10 years to life.

Any malicious use of your abilities prior to registration will be considered an act of aggression against the United States.

Service for the good of the nation.

Signature,

Major General Arthur P. Crowley

Department of Extraordinary Resource Registration (DERR)

United States Department of Defense

The light from the monitor seemed painfully bright in the dim room, pulling from the darkness only the edge of the desk and a cold cup of coffee. I reread the message for the fifth time. Official government domain, digital signature with the national seal, forgery was impossible.

Three hours ago I discovered I had abilities. Only three hours. I had not even managed to understand what exactly had changed in my body, yet the machinery of the state had already turned its gears, identified me, and spat out an electronic draft notice.

It makes me shiver how fast they move when their interests are involved. I gave a bitter smirk, remembering my endless attempts to reach the tax office about work issues. “Your call is very important to us, all operators are busy, please try again next week…” Back then I was just an ordinary citizen, now I have become a resource. Dangerous, valuable, and subject to registration.

I never thought this crap would hit me personally.

For forty years the planet has lived to the rhythm of portals opening and closing. During that time the world accumulated myths, conspiracy theories, and hundreds of forums. Who are they? Where do they come from? Ordinary mortals like me know only what we are allowed to know. On the forums where I used to hang out in my youth people still build theories: alien intelligence, a demonic dimension, or parallel worlds. The truth remains securely locked inside the safes of the Pentagon.

I used to burn with curiosity about those mysteries too. Life quickly rearranges priorities. When your transmission is failing and the bank reminds you about a late loan payment, the riddles of distant space fade before the reality of daily existence. Everyday problems have an amazing property. They bring you down to earth more effectively than any gravitational anomaly field.

Only one thing is known for certain: since the day of the First Portal the world has changed on a genetic level. Among teenagers from twelve to sixteen years old the Awakened began to appear. In movies they are rebels tortured in secret laboratories until they start a revolution. Reality is far more mundane and cynical. The state practically showers those living nuclear bombs with benefits ordinary people cannot even dream about. For the masses they are rock stars, the elite, a new pantheon of gods.

I wanted to be one of them too. As a child I spent hours drawing my future costume, inventing a grandiose name, and believing that any moment I would leave the dull walls of school to go save humanity. But twelve years passed. Thirteen. Sixteen. The hope faded but never vanished completely, because there was always that tiny, ghostlike one percent chance of a late awakening.

College, job hunting, rent payments, and helping my mom finally drove those childish fantasies out of my head. At thirty two you no longer wait for a miracle. You wait for your paycheck.

And now, when I had finally built my life, secured a well paid position, taken out a mortgage for my own house, and bought a car, the universe decided to grant my childhood dream.

To hell with all of you. I am thirty two. I do not need upheavals. I need peace and a stable schedule. At fifteen, superpowers are a ticket to life. At thirty two, they are a sentence for the life I built.

Rumors about the sky high salaries of the Awakened always go hand in hand with mortality statistics that authorities prefer not to publicize. Every portal opening is a military operation. The army enters, secures the perimeter… and in the best case half of them return. And now I am part of that.

The thought of fleeing to Mexico stayed in my head for exactly one minute. Pointless. If they tracked me down in my own house even though I had not demonstrated any power, the surveillance must be total. Satellites, energy scanners, background sensors, I am under a dome of observation. They would grab me at the first checkpoint or train station.

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I do not want to die. Especially now, when life has only just begun to bear fruit.

And the worst part is my ability. It does not make me stronger, it does not grant regeneration or the ability to dodge bullets. I simply exhaled and it appeared before my eyes. A translucent blue window that ignored the laws of optics, remaining perfectly clear no matter how I turned my head.

[System Notification]

Class: Trainer

Description: Your trainees (familiars) receive a bonus to development speed and gain evolution branches unavailable in the natural environment.

Current task: Capture your first familiar!

Twenty years ago I would have traded my entire Pokémon figurine collection for a message like that. Now… For a moment I imagined myself, a grown man in a cap and short shorts, running through bushes chasing some glowing squirrel. What a disgrace.

But if I want to survive, I will have to play by the rules. I have three months before I must report to the base. What waits for me there? A personal instructor who will teach me the nuances of controlling power? Or a dry registration followed by deployment into the field as cannon fodder, where I will have to figure everything out myself? I had no right to take risks.

There is another reason to hurry. Life insurance does not apply inside portals. If I die, the bank will seize the house and my mom will be left alone with no means of support. That means I have to use these abilities to earn money. A lot of it, and quickly.

Rob banks? Out of the question. The letter made it perfectly clear: I am under watch. Any illegal activity will turn me from a valuable resource into a dangerous asset scheduled for elimination. I need a legal arena. But who could I ask for advice? Other Awakened are as unreachable as celebrities, and the letter did not include any consultation hotline. Write back to the general whose signature stands on the draft notice? No. Better not provoke the lion ahead of time, otherwise my final three months of freedom will turn into interrogations in a cell.

That leaves experimentation.

I looked at the table. Inside a small cardboard box my test subject was rustling, purchased an hour ago from the nearest pet store according to every genre cliché.

An ordinary white mouse.

I could feel something moving inside me, a barely perceptible stream of energy linking me with that tiny creature. My first step toward survival began with a ten dollar rodent.

My only active function at the moment is [Capture Familiar]. It sounds simple, but the devil is always in the details. At first my plan had been ambitious. I imagined a snarling tiger, a massive bear, or at the very least a wolfhound, someone who could become my living shield when the time came to step beyond the horizon of a portal event. But the common sense of an office worker quickly cooled my enthusiasm. If the beast rebelled or the magic malfunctioned, it would be far easier to crush a defective mouse with a slipper than fight for my life in my own living room against a furious predator.

I focused. Energy began to gather in the center of my right palm. It did not burn the skin. Instead it felt like a faint, almost delicate prickling of static electricity. Gradually a blue sphere formed, translucent and weightless like a soap bubble, yet inside it vibrated a subtle power.

“Come on, little guy, do not fail me,” I whispered and pushed the sphere toward the box with a mental command.

The sphere slipped from my palm, gently sank into the body of the rodent and silently burst, scattering sparks.