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Supero Academy: School of the Super for Heroes and Heroines

Main Hall—Supero Academy: Outside San Francisco, CA

Aeneas Pericles and Achilles Aros weren’t bad guys. They just seemed a little off possibly because of their almost-robotic form of movement and greeting. They stood behind Arcus like two loyal dogs, their eyes roving from student to student. They didn’t talk a lot.

“Welcome, future superheroes-in-training, to Supero Academy.” They spoke in a drone, managing awkward bows from the waist.

“Er—hello.” Lars Maguire. Small wave.

“Hey, yo, eh!” Hayden Stitch on that one. He guffawed loudly. No hesitation here. “You guys must be the other two CEOs here, eh, I right?”

Slight flinch of acknowledgement from Robot Boys.

“He-eh-ey!” Hayden. “You guys mechanical or something? Has Big Master Baraban put you yo together to come out on a remote control?” He began mimicking a robot. “Hee, hee, hee, I’m mechanical, eh. I’m a robot sent here to probe yooooouuuu.”

“Knock it off, Hayden.” Lars.

That failed. The rest of the students couldn’t help laughing.

“Actually, Aeneas and Achilles are two of my best assistants.” Arcus. “We’ve been friends since we were merely yea-high. We went to a boarding school together as classmates, up until the time we escaped and decided to make better lives for ourselves. All three of us founded and built this academy. It was all I could think of doing to protect any future students from suffering what we’ve suffered through. The Cult of Forest Three has summoned thee.”

And Aeneas and Achilles recognized these words instantly. Three voices chanting in unison filled the large room.

“The Cult of Forest Three has summoned thee!”

“Hey, what’s with the Cult of Forest stuff?” Lars whispered it secretly in Hayden’s ear.

“Beats me.” Hayden, much less funny. “Maybe it’s a tribal thing. You know: sort of like those old Indian rituals where they dance and beat drums and call to the Great Spirit. That sort of thing. Maybe this school is part of their secret spiritual prayers.”

Turned out Hayden was partly correct.

“Brothers of the Cult of Forest Three.” Arcus ceased the chanting as attention riveted back to more important matters at hand. “Would you kindly show these daring young people where to place their luggage? They must be close to collapsing under the weight by now.”

Turned out Arcus was mostly correct.

“Of course, O Great Chief.” Aeneas sounded less like a mechanical robot and more like a human being. “Girl students, if you would follow me, please. There are two elevators at the end of the hall on the right. Your rooms are on the second floor. Boys are on the third. Upon reaching the second floor, you will find yourselves in a hallway with doors along each side. On the left is a list posted on a bulletin board. The list has your room assignments and the names of all your roommates. If you aren’t used to boarding with more than just yourself, you’d best begin adapting to cramping into a sardine can, starting now.”

He beckoned in a wide gesture for the girls to follow him. Obviously Arcus had rubbed off his actions already.

Achilles said similar words for the boys.

“The elevators leading up to your rooms are down that hall over there, and when you get up to the third floor, look for a bulletin board with a long list of names and numbers on them. The numbers are your rooms, and the names are those you will be spending this entire school year bunking in with. Think of it as going away to college for the first time. You’re sharing a room with three other individuals just like yourself.”

Okay, so he didn’t quite say similar words to those by Aeneas.

“I’d say that guy is completely off his rocker.” Aika Delaney was heard to speak somewhere behind Jessica.

The FBI rookie agent Narayan House answered her. “Who? Aeneas? Or do you mean Achilles?”

Aika shook her head. “Both of them are rather odd, but I think I’m already liking Aeneas the least. They’re like androids. That guy Hayden was right in a certain sense. Robotic, appearing to follow in Arcus’s shadow. They don’t say a whole lot other than to drone on in that weird metallic voice.”

The blond girl who had arrived with House and Aika was later known to be named Chloe Fine, according to something she’d said to Agent House. She didn’t talk a lot, either, but she apparently had medical knowledge beyond anything any of her classmates could comprehend. She was starting off away from the group, heading to the hall on the right as Aeneas had described.

Wise words of the wise man spoke true. There were two elevators lining the right side of the hall, and Dr. Fine jammed her finger down on the ‘Up’ arrow of the elevator on the right.

“I suppose the robot man isn’t too busy to show us the way.” Sarcastic remark from Aika. “Tells us to follow him and then leaves us with the booty. Not a very gracious host in my opinion.”

“He did say second floor.” Agent House confirmed the words. “Girls on the second floor, boys on the third. I’m guessing it’s set up like student housing on a university campus, where students rent out cheap apartments and share the rent. There must be others coming in after us. Otherwise, he would be here to show us.”

Ding. Ding. The elevator Dr. Fine had taken an interest in opened its doors. She, Jessica, Agent House and Aika squeezed themselves in. Agent House pressed the button that said “2.” Ding. Ding. The doors slid shut and the elevator rose to Floor 2.

“Hi. I don’t think I met you yet.” Agent House extended her hand to Jessica, who had been silent most of the journey in. “I’m with the FBI. Narayan House, special agent. I’m in training, but I still consider myself an official.” Hand on badge. It gleamed under the bright elevator lights.

“Jessica Kent.” Jessica shook the hand held out to her. Grin. “I just recently found out I have visions and can see through walls.”

“Really?” Agent House was impressed.

Doors slid open on Floor 2. They stepped out into—what do you know—a hallway. A long one.

“Found out during a day on the job.” Jessica.

“Where do you work?” House.

“The San Francisco Museum of Natural History.” Jessica. “I’m the technician there. I was just checking off some artifacts when I had the most unusual premonition. I thought nothing of it until I got my admittance letter to go here. Then I get here and I ‘accidentally’ manage to see Aeneas and Achilles through the back wall as glowing, moving X-rays.”

“X-ray vision!” House got it. “Join the club. I found out in my new FBI office that I could launch out transparent shields over my body. And I was just trying to block myself against a serial killer.”

She showed Jessica that she didn’t yet carry any sort of firearm. “The weapon license is a separate battle. Boss insisted it would be soon. Not soon enough, however. I haven’t taken any tests.”

“A transparent shield over your body?” Jessica tried to take it in. Her knowledge of different superpowers was amazing. “Did you throw your hands up when the killer struck?”

“Yes. I did.” House looked amazed. “I was trying to protect myself. I still don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s a good thing I got admitted here, because if I have any sort of freaky superpower, the place to learn to use it and control it is probably here. I’m not sure if the shield even came from me.”

Superpower Wizard solved the issue fast and easy. “If you threw your hands up the second this serial killer struck, and the shield emerged, then it came from you. I believe your power, Special Agent House, lies in the simple launching of force fields.”

Simple launching of force fields. Force fields. The words echoed. The other two girls in the group halted in their tracks. Simple launching of force fields. Look who knew so much and knew so little about her own powers.

“Where—where did you find this information?” House clenched her hand around her badge like she was going to perform an arrest. “Why aren’t you running this school? Have you attended a place like this before?”

Shrug. “I don’t know.” Jessica. “I just—know things. From up here.” Point to the head. “I am rather knowledgeable in the subject of superheroism; I just know not why.”

‘Rather’ knowledgeable? The truth was that Jessica seemed to know everything there was to know about superpowers; yet she had some of her own and couldn’t understand where they had come from.

“I know why.” Dr. Fine spoke. “You possess an automatic connection to superheroes. It’s in your blood. Things that interest you—there’s a link in the brain that places what you like the most instantly at the front, while all other things you might be thinking about are placed out of the way in the back for safekeeping. You don’t read about superheroes. Your interest in them is what triggers this knowledge. Human nature lives by what the brain automatically sorts out to the front of the line. You can’t control it. It happens at random.

“Medical school.” She added the last part in case the other girls looked too confused at her words. “I’m a psychiatrist at the Green Backwoods hospital in Boise. I had a patient this afternoon whom I see regularly, and at first I thought I might have been going nuts, but it ended up being that I was harmlessly reading the woman’s thoughts. Everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets were being let out without their knowledge. It was worse on the plane.”

She walked down the long hallway and found the bulletin board almost right away. “Over here,” she called.

House, Aika and Jessica walked over there. The fate of the rooms and the roommates was about to be assigned.

Downstairs on the first floor, more new arrivals were finding the high-rise in the middle of nowhere and stepping inside with very confused looks on their faces. Arcus, Aeneas and Achilles gave them the heads-up. There were stunned silences and bewildered questions. The new female and male students got the same treatment as the crowd before them, Aeneas pointing the way for the girls and Achilles the boys. The newbies reached the elevators and jammed their hands down on the ‘Up’ arrows.

Ding. Ding. The elevators’ doors slid open. The elevator on the right had the button for Floor 2 aglow, and the elevator on the left had that for Floor 3. It would be the same routine for all the incoming superhero students who were just discovering exactly how different they really were in the world. Arcus might have had some idea, or maybe he didn’t, but Dr. Chloe Fine, MD in ESP, was reading his silent, most eager thoughts of the utmost excitement.

Upstairs on Floor 2—Supero Academy: Outside San Francisco, CA

The small group of girls currently on Floor 2 seemed rather out of sorts. It was only natural for that to happen. Aeneas had told them to head down the hallway on the right, get in the elevator, and head up to Floor 2, if you were a girl, that is. Chloe Fine, MD in ESP, was studying the bulletin board hanging between the two doors in the middle of the hall.

Ding. Ding. Elevator slid open upstairs, over where the girls stood. Possibly the boys entering Floor 3.

Now what?

The best thing to do right now was to study the bulletin board. No one understood how in the hell Arcus assigned roommates to people. Everyone who went here had superpowers, right? What was the difference? How could Arcus even think of organizing people based on powers? Jessica learned that all superheroes were different, at least concerning abilities. She was barely getting used to the school. Now she had to get used to having roommates.

Above the bulletin board hung a rack with flat square-shaped objects hanging from them. Closer study revealed that they were keys to each room. There were four keys hanging off each ring hooked over the rack. One key for each person in each room.

Agent House flipped one of the rings over her index finger. “You’d think it would be less confusing by the looks of these things.” She meant the keys. “They look like those keys they give you at motels, where you slide it in a little slot and wait for a green light to admit you inside.”

“But look at this place.” Aika Delaney spoke out. “Does it not look like a motel to you? The hallway, the doors on each side, the numbers on the doors. Wouldn’t you think Arcus and his friends designed it this way on purpose?”

Brainy. And logical. Welder thinking on her toes.

“Of course.” Agent House stopped flipping the key ring off her finger and stole a glance at the paper hanging on the bulletin board.

She didn’t appear to know anyone in her room. She read Room 210, with her name second on the list below someone called Phanton Gregory. Third was Ada Jude, and one other girl she did not know. So much for her hopes of having roommates she knew. She had to be the only freak living in Washington, DC, for according to Jessica, having the ability to throw out so-called ‘force fields.’

There were four people to each room. Motel College. Smooth.

Jessica was a bit luckier than Agent House. Only one name stood out at her when she looked at the people listed in her room. Nicole Kaester, “Niki” as she was known to her friends. A fellow San Franciscan, born and raised in California, just like herself. Things were looking up so far. The other two were unfamiliar: one Kristin Swann and one Calleigh Newly. Oh, well. They wouldn’t have to stay unfamiliar for long. Jessica was second on her list as well. Alphabetical order to keep things organized.

She was in Room 212. One door down from Agent House. The odd numbers had to be on the other side. Definitely Motel College. Preferably known as Motel Superhero.

Aeneas and Achilles hadn’t been gracious tour guides because they were busy greeting more incoming students downstairs. Jessica hoped Niki would show up in the next group. Bonus points for Kristin and Calleigh to do so as well. She knew deep down in her heart that they would be nice. Arcus wasn’t going to put mean people with nice people. Life didn’t work like that. Just for the hell of it, Jessica read the other names on the list and their room numbers. Aika Delaney with Daphne Casey, Faith Summer and someone else she didn’t know. Whoopee. Lena Montana, whoever that was, with Debbie Henry, Teresa Vardell, and Nona Tran. No spark of recognition there. She wasn’t planning on memorizing every single name on the list.

Excitement was rather strong. This was a school specializing in Freak-o-Zone zoidology, and yet when they arrive on the second floor, it’s as if they’ve set up reservations at the local Hilton. Move over, Holiday Inn...

Jessica searched the large key rack for Room 212, and removed the ring from its hook. Just a small yank, and one key came off in her hand. The remaining ones she left on the ring and replaced so her roommates would know where to look for theirs.

Mimicking a courteous guest at the local Hilton, she slid the key upwards into the black box nailed to the outside door of Room 212. An electronic beep, and a green light flashed twice. She turned the knob and slid the white-painted wood door open.