ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN: Catch

117       In gym, they were assigned to new groups. The groupings were more varied than the previous week’s, but other than a deliberate mixing of classes and ranks in each set of ten students, Alden couldn’t tell if there was any reason behind it. His group had three S’s, six A’s, and him. Maricel, Jeffy, and a very quiet Strength Brute named Lucille were their S’s. Njeri the Water Shaper, Reinhard the Bow Meister, Everly, Astrid, Haoyu, and Lexi were their A’s. This is a significantly more intimidating collection of people to have gym with than last week. It was exciting, too. He’d wanted to see his roommates and Maricel working up close. He’d seen all of Everly’s tricks now, but her freezing spells tended to make class a lot more interesting. And chasing Klein just wouldn’t be the same without Astrid throwing herself wildly in unexpected directions. “This is great!” Haoyu said, jogging across the gym between Alden and Lexi toward their first session. “I thought we might go all semester without getting to be in the same group!” To Alden’s surprise, Instructor Marion’s hide and seek maze was making a reappearance. Though it looked like it was in a new configuration. “I was just thinking I was happy about it, too.” “I’m glad we’re getting the maze out of the way to start with.” Lexi had Writher in a cross-body holster over his unitard today. “It’s my least favorite.” “Because you don’t like memorizing everyone else’s position?” Alden asked. “Or because you can’t use Writher?” “It’s because it’s a team game,” Haoyu whispered loudly. Lexi didn’t deny it. “Sorry to bring out the maze again so soon, everyone,” Instructor Marion said when they’d all gathered. “It wasn’t supposed to reappear for two more weeks, but we’ve had a change of plans that makes introducing a new activity today less practical. Big Sna—Instructor Waker is going to be leaving for the Triplanets tomorrow, and he’ll be gone for at least a week.” Astrid made an unhappy sound. She seemed to like Big Snake’s teaching style a lot for someone who took just as many tennis balls to the face as anyone else. “I understand,” said Marion. “But Principal Saleh will be his replacement. She thinks it would be fun for you all to go ahead and take a crack at the obstacle course race we’ve put together for the first year classes who are ahead of yours. We’ll be using my usual section of the gym and Instructor Waker’s for it. And I know you’ll all be excited to hear that it’s a team event!” Alden accidentally caught Lexi’s eye at exactly that moment, and he couldn’t help but smile. Marion went on to explain that the obstacle course would be run by two competing groups at the same time. And “strategic interference” with other runners would be allowed. “We get to duel!” Jeffy sounded energized. “Strategic interference isn’t really dueling.” Instructor Marion examined Jeffy. “We’ll talk about it on Wednesday! That way the rules will be fresh in your mind. For now let’s divide you into teams. Same rules as last time. And remember! No using targeting abilities no matter how tempting it might be.” The hide and seek maze was a different experience with this group than it had been with Alden’s old one. For one thing, half of these people had very superhuman endurance. And they were almost all on the other team, looking chipper and well oxygenated, while Alden and several other teammates were starting to pant from all the sprinting. Maricel, Jeffy, Lucille, Haoyu, and Reinhard were the hunted in the green vests. And Alden had somehow become the shot-caller for the hunters in the red vests. I do know how this happened. I’m just surprised that it did. Astrid had volunteered him for it. “Because you’re always bossing people around in this game! Like Max! You’re good at it!” “That’s not really true,” Alden had said. “I’m just faster at text messaging than the rest of you, so I end up outputting a lot more information to the group.” “Coms are important,” said Njeri, pulling one of her legs back in a thigh stretch. “I want to win.” “When I’m focused on hunting a particular person, I forget where everyone else is,” Everly said. “Lexi, what do you think?” Alden asked. “I don’t give other people instructions for this kind of thing unless I’m a hundred percent sure about them, so if I tell any of you to do something, I expect you to do it.” The other three looked irritated. How would a good roommate translate that for him? “I think what Lexi means, in his heart, is that he would rather not take a strong advice-giving position on the team, but when he does give advice, he hopes we’ll trust his judgment.” “That’s what I said.” “So we’re all in it together!” Alden had announced. “I’ll try to keep the other team’s positioning in mind. Please take a couple of seconds to text when you change your own positions or you spot a green vest.” And now he was stuck as the leader. But because he wasn’t great at remembering where all the other players were at any given second, he was focusing particularly hard on a weakness they had discovered in the other team. Jeffy would follow bait. Alden almost couldn’t believe it when Njeri had said she’d made the Aqua Brute go down a corridor by leaving a trail of water drops on the floor. [He followed them? He didn’t run away from them?] When one of the hunted got spotted, Alden’s team stole one of their points. If Jeffy thought Njeri was in an area, he should’ve fled, not headed toward her. Doing the brain work meant Alden wasn’t running quite as much himself. At the moment, he was occupying a spot beside a pyramidal obstacle. Haoyu should be in the area, and from here, Alden might catch a glimpse of him. [He followed,] Njeri confirmed. [I had left the water there because I didn’t want him to use that path. I was planning to catch him somewhere else. But then he didn’t show up in the place I expected and Lexi got that point from him instead.] A minute ago, Lexi had spotted Jeffy trying to hide between two cube-shaped obstacles on the other side of the maze. [Does anyone have ears on him right now?] Alden asked. That nobody had eyes on him was a given. Their point tally would’ve gone up, and the spotter would have reported the location. [I have ears on someone who walks heavy,] said Everly. [We’re both in Column Forest right now. It’s probably one of the boys if it’s not a trick of some kind.] Column Forest had become its name at some point. It was a small area full of tall body-wide columns with just enough space in between them for a person to pass through. It was a favorite hiding spot for the hunted and an annoying portion of the maze for the hunters. [Haoyu should be near me. He and Reinhard both have their shoes off and they know to sneak when they’re in tight spots instead of corridors,] Alden said. [If you can hear them clearly, it’s got to be Jeffy.] [It’s him then.] All right, thought Alden. What’s the most efficient way to use him before the other team realizes we’re using him? After the hunters spotted someone, they had to close their eyes and count down to give the person they’d caught repositioning time. And whenever someone was in countdown mode, Alden’s team had a blind spot on the map that the other team could use. Multiple people counting down at the same time meant they lost control of too much territory and their prey ran wild. So all of them just converging on Jeffy in a trap was no good. Why did he follow the water? [He must want to help his team out by location reporting on someone,] Alden texted. It was what made the most sense. Jeffy wanted to sneak up on a hunter without being spotted in return so that he could tell his teammates where the enemy was. The hunted earned points passively by running away and not being seen. Jeffy probably didn’t like the role as much as the more proactive-feeling hunter position. A point came in suddenly, and a moment later Astrid inflicted one of her mental texts on the group. [I caught! Dirt Girl! Counting counting! Edge! Hear fast! Think trees.] Alden had gotten so used to translating for her last week that he just did it without waiting to find out if people had understood or not. [She spotted Maricel near the perimeter of her zone, and hears her running away fast. She’s counting now. She thinks Maricel is going toward Column Forest with you, Everly.] [Yes!] Astrid agreed. [Lexi, can you cover your zone and Njeri’s?] Alden asked. [Not perfectly.] Alden rolled his eyes. Lexi’s approach to hunting was aggressive, effective, and very like him. He had memorized several different routes through his section that would provide him with full visibility, assigned them numbers, and he had a randomizer website pulled up on his interface telling him which route to run next when he completed one so that there wouldn’t be a pattern for the hunted to pick up on. He’d been running constantly since the beginning of class, and nobody left his zone alive, which meant nobody had hidden in his zone for most of the game. [I think it would be okay if you were a little less perfect while you covered a larger area. Njeri, could you go pick up Jeffy and lead him around for us? We’ll take turns stealing points from him until he gives up on chasing you. If we stagger it out enough the other team might think it’s bad luck that he keeps getting caught instead of realizing it’s a scheme.] A point came in. Njeri replied, [Counting down. Lucille. Toward you, Lexi. I’ll get Jeffy next.] They gained another point as Lucille was spotted by Lexi. A flicker of movement on the periphery of Alden’s vision caught his attention, and he spun around just in time to see Haoyu trying to creep out from behind the pyramid. Alden pointed at him triumphantly, and Haoyu winced. [You’re so mean,] Haoyu texted him a few seconds later while he was counting down. [You’re not even breathing hard,] Alden told him. [Run faster.] Not long after that, their first Jeffy point came in as Njeri lured him to Astrid. [Excited! Bloodhound!] Astrid said. Alden, racing through his zone on what he hoped would be a surprise course for any hiding green vests, had no idea what that meant. [Astrid, if it’s important information, using your fingers to text is good. It doesn’t have to be mental all the time. I finger text sometimes.] Rarely. [Jeffy looks really excited. Like a bloodhound chasing a scent trail!] said Astrid. That’s good, thought Alden. [Great work, Njeri!] She didn’t answer. But a second later he heard footsteps, and the Water Shaper dashed through the intersection he was approaching with a look of concentration on her face. Their eyes barely met as she spilled a little water out of the drinking bottles she’d carried into the maze “just in case I think of something to do with them.” Maricel had brought in the big bag of potting soil she liked to work with in class, too. It would make it possible for her to move through the air with zero footsteps, but hauling it around, even telekinetically, must have been too slow. She’d abandoned it. Alden had wondered how useful the water bottle would be, since Njeri couldn’t levitate herself with it and they weren’t allowed to attack other players. Baiting someone with it had never occurred to him. He tried to give her a thumbs up but she was already rushing away. Isn’t she going a little fast? he wondered as he hid behind a corner to wait for his Shaper-delivered victim to appear. It wasn’t like Jeffy would be running after her. He was trying to sneak up on— Pounding footsteps interrupted his thoughts, and a mohawk-sporting Aqua Brute appeared, jogging with his eyes fixed on the ground. Jeffy was grinning. As he spotted the water splatter Njeri had left, his face brightened even more. And his pace picked up. Alden took a point for his team, and… He didn’t see me. Jeffy’s jog was approaching a run. The lost point didn’t seem to phase him at all. Alden didn’t think he even knew he was the one who’d lost his team the point. [Njeri! Go faster! He’s gaining on you!] Alden closed his eyes for the required number of seconds. [What do you mean he’s gaining on her?] Lexi asked. [You guys, Jeffy’s focused on chasing Njeri. He might have forgotten he’s not a hunter. Don’t let him see you when you take your point from him.] [He can’t be that—] Another point. [Never mind. He’s definitely forgotten,] Lexi said. [Astrid, come this way a little.] Everly got a point from Maricel finally in the Column Forest. [Can I have some Jeffy points?] The next time Alden saw Njeri she was sprinting flat out, and she only paused for long enough to pick up the water she’d left behind last time so that she could throw it in a slightly different location. The highlight of the whole game, in his opinion, came two minutes and quite a few points later when he heard Reinhard bellow, “What do you mean you caught her!? You’re not supposed to be catching anyone!!” Another point. [Me!] Astrid texted. [Loud shout! I found!] ****** In Rescue, Instructor Fragment had them excavating water balloons from an impressive mound of wood, rubble, and broken appliances. It required concentration and careful application of powers, since mistakes would lead to collapses that crushed the victims. They were allowed to work alone or in groups today. Alden was saving poor injured balloons left and right. “Lexi, tell me to pick up that piece of particle board,” he said, indicating the one he’d chosen. Lexi was looking down at his third smashed balloon. He used Mind Writher very well when he was slicing something down to size so that he could move it more easily, or when he was pulling sturdy, medium-sized objects out of the pile. But it wasn’t good for heavy lifting, and when he tried to pluck trapped balloons out of the mess directly, they always popped. He kept trying, though. He seemed very concerned about his delicacy with the tool. “Grab the particle board,” Astrid said helpfully. She was extracting what looked like half of a recliner. Alden changed targets. “Tell me again, please, Astrid.” “Take the board!” The board was underneath a mound of bricks. Checking his footing to make sure he wasn’t standing on anything too precarious, Alden grabbed the board by the edge, preserved it, and lifted. The bricks all came with it, riding on top. He walked backward, careful not to tilt the heavy load. It was satisfying to dump it all in his personal rubble mound, then dive back in to save the balloon he’d uncovered. It was barely visible, still trapped in a crevice under a heavy slab of concrete with twisted pieces of rebar sticking out. “Astrid, do you mind—?” “Rescue that pink dying man!” The balloon was pink. And it was one of the really big ones that had been overfilled so that it would burst more easily. Alden shoved his arm in, grabbed, and preserved. When he got the balloon to the exit, though, he realized he had a problem. Pink dying man, you’re too chubby to escape this way. Well…it’s not like you’ll pop. As long as I don’t lose focus on protecting you. Deliberately hitting things with his preserved burdens could be iffy. He assumed that yanking them through a crack they shouldn’t fit through would be similarly iffy, though he’d never actually tried this particular move. He closed his eyes and concentrated. I’m willingly bearing the weight of this water balloon. I want to keep it safe from damage. Me dragging it out from under a big pile of heavy stuff and letting it scrape against some things on the top and bottom is part of that. Moving all the heavy junk on top of it piece by piece would be another option, but it would be a less educational one. Alden got into a crouch and gave the chubby balloon an experimental pull. His preservation held, but the rubble didn’t budge. It seemed to be wedged tightly together. Hmm…maybe if I get my hand underneath the balloon and try to use more of a lifting motion to move the stuff on top? He tried, only to have to stop immediately. The concrete slab had shifted, and its shifting had made a much larger quantity of rubble move and slide than Alden had anticipated. He didn’t know how many balloons he might crush if the pile collapsed. “Are you really going to use the people you’re saving that way in the future?” Lexi asked. “I have no idea what you mean,” Alden lied. “Besides, if I was trapped and a hero with my skill came along to save me, I’d be completely fine with them using my preserved body as a lever or a carrying device…” “Maybe he’s going to go for one of those dark hero personas!” Reinhard called from the other side of the pile. “He’ll rescue you from the villain and then turn around and block the villain’s spells with your face.” “Is that real?” Maricel asked. She was working with Lucille, moving ground element obstacles with her telekinesis while the quiet girl moved everything else. Their collection of saved balloons was growing fast. “People being heroes like that?” “They’re not very common,” said Njeri. “Too controversial.” “I noticed this last week. You don’t actually know much about superheroes, do you, Maricel?” Reinhard said. The large, pale stone she was moving dropped suddenly, and Lucille caught it with a grunt before it could hit the cache of balloons they were trying to save. One handed. Fine, thought Alden, raising an eyebrow at the girl as Maricel frantically apologized. Be epic like that. He wasn’t sure he could have even made a boulder that size wobble without getting something coated in his magic underneath it. He wondered how she compared to Heloísa, a rank below her. Lexi had come over to examine Alden’s problem rescue from closer up. His whip was in his hand. “Do you want me to try to cut a wider opening?” “That sounds like a good plan. I can keep the balloon preserved so if anything falls on it it’ll still be safe.” “I might hit your hand,” Lexi warned. “That’s what the gym suits are for.” “I might hit the balloon.” “That’s what I’m for.” Writher’s thin chain lengthened and started to glow. Lexi backed up a few steps. He’s backing up? Alden had assumed they were going for a close-range, delicate operation. “Hold still,” said Lexi. He’s going to really swing it. Alden tensed. Even though the pain setting on the gym was low again today, he still remembered what it felt like to be grabbed around the waist and stabbed through the leg by that thing during combat assessment. And that hadn’t been its full potency either. Lexi moved. Alden’s eyes weren’t fast enough to make out the whip as anything but a blur of light, but there was a loud crack and some of the concrete around his hands crumbled. Writher phased out. A thin slice of concrete and iron fell forward onto Alden’s forearms. It was heavy, but not enough to injure him. His whip cut right through all of that, Alden thought as he lifted the water balloon free of the expanded gap. Well that’s neat. Once again, he was convinced that the gym group he’d been assigned to last time had been made up of the least scary members of the class. During the brief mid-class break, Alden set himself up for defense. “Is that the shield of the day?” Haoyu asked, leaning over him curiously. “Yep.” Alden had learned last week that if he tried to shield his whole body, Big Snake just threw more balls at him harder. It fatigued him faster so that he couldn’t try out as many things in the next sessions, and hiding behind a magic wall for thirty minutes was lazy anyway. So his shield was going to be a more sporting size today. Shoulder-to-hip coverage was what he was going for. “I thought a paracord zigzag would be easy to make fast even in an emergency, so I wanted to try it.” He laid the cord out on the floor in the zigzag pattern, making sure that it was a little wider than his body and that the gaps were all narrow enough to prevent him from getting hit by Snake’s preferred ammunition, while still providing enough visibility if he...