Chapter 3: Power Testing

  Jackson was the human equivalent of a screensaver—a perpetually glazed-eyed bureaucrat subsisting on coffee brewed so thick it could’ve been used to tar roofs. His job, if you could call it that, involved existing in a cubicle that smelled of stale Cheeto dust and pretending to monitor a system that had never once pinged urgent in the six years he’d warmed this chair. Thank God for Uncle Frank’s golf buddy being the deputy director of something.

  He was mid-YouTube deep dive into “10 Pets Who Saw Ghosts” when his monitor flared crimson. The alert screeched like a fax machine giving birth. Jackson choked on his fourth cup of sludge, spraying espresso-coloured spit across his cubicle

  “What the actual—”

  The prompt demanded a 12-digit authorisation code Jackson hadn’t updated since his onboarding He fumbled through Post-its stuck to his keyboard: Password1234, Password2345, ILoveLamps??. When he finally found the equally uninspired but correct password the screen blinked and displayed:

  SEER ALERT: SECTOR 3 – X-GRADE ANOMALY DETECTED.

  “Oh nononono—” Jackson fumbled for the laminated cheat sheet hidden under his “World’s Okayest Employee” mug. X-Grade: Impossible to measure. Protocol: Contact Site Supervisor immediately! Casualty estimate: “Apocalyptic"

  X-Grade was the “oh shit” classification. The “evacuate the continent” tier. The “Why the hell did they let a guy who failed remedial algebra handle this?” Jackson’s soul briefly vacated his body. He nearly tripped over his ergonomic footrest sprinting to Supervisor Patrick’s office.

  The door to his office was a slab of reinforced steel that screamed “I audit war crimes for fun.” Inside of the lair looked less like an office and more like a dictator’s panic room—walls barren save for a framed photo of Patrick shaking hands with a senator mid-nervous laugh. The man himself loomed behind his desk, a human cinder block in a tie. He was well over 7 ft with the body of a professional strongman, rumor was he’d once been Special Forces Metahuman.

  Jackson’s voice squeaked. “Sir, the Seer—Sector 3—X-Grade, it’s—”

  Patrick didn’t look up. “Spit. It. Out.”

  “Sir, The Seer—Sector 3’s precog—flagged an X-Grade threat. Some kid. Calum Vey. He is apparently some, uh, child prodigy?” Jackson’s voice cracked, sweat pooling under his clip-on tie. “Interviewer classified him as a C-Level Modifier. To, uh, avoid spooking him before we can call a team in.”

  Patrick’s pen stopped mid-scrawl. "What's his power."

  Jackson’s tablet chose that moment to reboot, its cracked screen flickering through error messages until it finally revealed what he was looking for. “His file says ‘hybridisation’? Combines object properties. Although the telepath on-site couldn’t get a read—kid’s head’s a… uh…” He squinted at the report. “‘Cognitive hurricane. Almost impossible to read like trying to read a Super Genius or a high-level sensory superhuman.'"

  Patrick leaned back, his chair groaning like a tortured soul. He tapped a keycard on his desk, and the wall screen lit up with security footage: Calum at the registration office, slouched in his chair, fingers drumming a rhythm only he could hear.

  ***

  The gym reeked of sweat, ozone, and poor life choices—a bouquet of desperation and burnt rubber. Calum stood in the centre of Meta-Fit’s “Experimental Zone,” a corner cordoned off with caution tape and a handwritten sign reading BREAK IT, BUY IT in marker so faded it might’ve been a relic from the Cold War. Rusty loomed over him, his prosthetic arm morphed into a Roman-style tower shield that gleamed like liquid mercury.

  “Quit stalling, kid,” Rusty barked.

  Calum eyed the smorgasbord of junk Rusty had scavenged: a half-used roll of duct tape, a chipped dumbbell, a novelty mug labelled CAFFEINATED & MALADJUSTED, and a 45-pound plate crusted with the fossilized sweat of a thousand failed New Year’s resolutions. He grabbed the duct tape and plate, their threads humming in his mind

  One charge snapped loose, sharp as a rubber band to the spleen.

  " Shit..." The plate didn’t just become sticky, it ravenously adhered to anything it touched almost as if it hungered for it. The place suctioned to his palm with the desperation bonding it so fiercely Calum felt like his hand was trapped in the steel jaws of a starving wolf.

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  “Shit—shit—!” He flailed, the plate swinging wildly as he tried to pry it off with his free hand. The duct tape’s adhesive properties had apparently concentrated the entire roll’s worth of grip into a single, tyrannical bond.

  All while Margo and Rusty failed to hold in their laughter.

  “Not. Helping.” Calum dropped to the floor, slamming the plate down. It stuck fast to the textured concrete floor, shifting to an amateur deadlifting stance Calum pried his hand free with a sound like far too moist velcro.

  “There. Happy?” He wiggled his raw, red palm, now missing a layer of skin.

  Rusty crouched, his prosthetic finger morphing into a screwdriver to prod the plate. It didn’t budge. “Huh. Gonna need a crowbar. Or maybe a forklift.” He straightened, his arm shifting back into a hand with a liquid-metal schlorp. “But let’s talk about limitations. All powers got ’em. They are what separate the wheat from the chaff.”

  He began pacing, his boots crunching. “First: How many objects can you fuse at once? Two? More? If it’s two, can you fuse a third to the result? Hell, can you even maintain two fused items simultaneously?” Rusty’s prosthetic arm morphed into a pointer finger aimed at Calum’s forehead. “Second: Living things. What happens if you fuse a cockroach to a toaster? Or worse—people?”

  “Third, can you fuse stuff to yourself? Most manipulators can’t self-target. Would your skin turn to concrete? Or would your spleen suddenly develop Bluetooth connectivity?”

  “Fourth: Size limits. Can you fuse a skyscraper with a grain of sand? Or could you even Target either in the first place? Fifth: Powered objects or meta-artifacts. What if you mashed a block of C4 into a cryo-grenade?”

  “Sixth: Control. When you fused that tape and plate, did you choose the adhesive property? Or did your power just… pick the shittiest possible combo?”

  Calum opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “Exactly,” Rusty said. “and these are just off the top of my head. You’re playing Russian roulette. You need to test everything. Then test it again. And when you’re out of things to test?” He leaned in, his breath smelling of peppermint schnapps. “You are wrong. Your power’s not a toy it's a tool and a weapon and using either without proper training is a quick trip to injury or death."

  Rusty’s gaze sharpened, the glint in his eye shifting from lecture mode to something far more dangerous. “Enough lecturing. Let’s test the real nightmare fuel.” Before anyone could protest, his prosthetic arm snapped upward with a hiss. The fingers reconfigured into a telescoping mesh net, snatching a fly mid-air. It buzzed furiously against the silver filaments as Rusty shoved the trapped insect toward Calum. “Fuse it. Right now.”

  “With what?” Calum recoiled.

  “Your pocket lint, a gum wrapper—hell, use anything.”

  Calum’s and went into his pocket in slight panic grabbing the first thing he touched. Gesturing towards the cage his fist uncurled, revealing the sweat-slick Lincoln cent. He swallowed, threads humming as the fly’s frantic wings brushed against his consciousness. One charge snapped.

  The fly’s exoskeleton rippled, its iridescent green shifting to a coppery patina. It darted faster now, a metallic blur ricocheting inside Rusty’s cage-arm with a sound like pennies down a gutter. Margo leaned in, fascination overriding caution. “Is it… ok?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Rusty pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and jabbed the insect. The sound of the pick snapping echoed throughout the room. “Christ. Exoskeleton’s solid copper. Mobility intact.” He whistled.

  A red LED blinked above them. Rusty froze, following the light to the security camera in the gym’s far corner—a dented relic he’d bolted up years ago to deter protein-powder thieves. “You functional?” he barked at the device. The lens zoomed audibly.

  Calum stared at the plate, its edges warped where the concrete had begun cracking around its unnatural grip. “So… crowbar?”

  Margo tossed him a rusty pry bar from the equipment rack.

  As Calum wedged the bar under the plate, the gym’s overhead lights flickered. A low hum vibrated through the floor, the kind that makes molars ache. Margo stiffened. “You hear that?”

  Rusty’s prosthetic arm shifted into a serrated blade. “EMP dampener. Someone’s locking down the block.”

  The hum crescendoed into a scream. Across the room, the reinforced windows darkened to obsidian as blast shutters slammed into place. A distorted voice boomed through the wall:

  “CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL X-12 INITIATED. ALL RESIDENTS REMAIN IN DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES.”

  Margo cursed, pulling out her cell phone. Its surface flickered through various alerts before resolving into a live feed of the street outside. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The screen showed six armoured vans and a helicopter encircling Meta-Fit.

  Calum froze, the crowbar slipping from his grip. “Are those…?”

  “Government meta-swat,” Rusty growled. “They only roll out for real serious shit: interdimensional incursions, high-level meta-terrorists … and Class X assets.” His glare landed on Calum. “Kid. When exactly did they do your intake interview?”

  "Wh—"

  "CALUM VEY VACATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY!"

  The crowbar clattered to the floor. Calum’s throat tightened as the voice boomed again, metallic and merciless:

  “CALUM VEY. VACATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY. YOU HAVE 20 SECONDS TO COMPLY.”

  Calum’s stomach dropped.