The Posterchildren: Origins Read online

  Zip pulled on her training shirt and a pair of spandex shorts. She laced up her sneakers in record time, knotting them three times for good measure and good luck. After brushing her teeth and running her fingers through her hair, she was more than ready to eat breakfast. The only problem was, she wasn’t sure if she was even partially ready to face her teammate.

  For about five seconds, she’d been so thrilled when she’d heard the Commander call out Chase and Underwood. Underwood was a fourteen-year-old legend, so far as the Academy was concerned. In her head, she’d cycled through what it’d be like to have him as her leader. In every mental scenario, it’d been pretty great. But then Underwood had stormed out of the forum, and everyone had turned to look at her. They’d stared at her like they’d seen whatever it was that had disgusted Underwood so much. She’d felt every single one of their eyes. She’d convinced herself that it wasn’t about her, that Underwood had only left because he’d been upset about his crummy score, but then she’d talked to him.

  For the next three years, you are my burden, he’d told her. I’ll carry you, but only because I must.

  Zip splashed cold water on her face, then buried her tingling nose and cheeks in a towel. It wasn’t that she was scared of him or anything. Really. He was just another legacy brat. Underwood’s father was dead, but he didn’t have to be living to be famous. Fame turned some people rotten.

  Her stomach growled impatiently. She had to do something about that before it got intolerable. Checking the knots in her laces one last time, Zip ran to the mess hall.

  The first run of the day was her favorite one. The air was crisp, and the morning dew soaked her socks through before she could cross the field between the dorms and the mess hall. She loved the contrast between her warming muscles and the cool early morning air. At six a.m., Foundation was quiet and sleepy and still. Zip loved it.

  It only took her a few seconds to get to the mess hall. The staff left the door open for her. In her enthusiasm to chow down first thing in the morning, a younger Zip had busted through a few screen doors. With her appetite, they’d never blamed her.

  The mess staff cooked the food, but the students served it. KP duty was a punishment, but one of the nicer ones. Today, scrambled eggs, fruit, and bagels were on the menu, and Ida Mae Sullivan and Ofelia D were slinging it. Ida Mae’s blonde curls were piled up under a hairnet, as flat as her pinched mouth. She never looked very happy, but she was looking especially sour this morning.

  “Morning!” Zip said cheerfully.

  “If you want scrambled eggs, hand me your plate. If you don’t, keep moving,” Ida Mae said, rolling her eyes.

  “Yes, please,” she said, grabbing a clean plate and a tray from the stacks at the beginning of the buffet line. “Can I have two servings, maybe?”

  “No,” Ida Mae said flatly, slapping a spoonful of scrambled eggs on her plate and shoving it back at her. Zip took it with a smile and moved on down the line.

  Ofelia was manning the mixed fruit and bagels. Her long, tangled dark hair was still damp from her morning swim. As a hydrokinetic poster with webbed fingers, Ofelia felt as strongly about swimming as Zip felt about running. For that reason alone, they’d always gotten along.

  “Morning!”

  “Morning, Zip,” Ofelia said, then whispered, “Two or three bagels?”

  “Two’s fine. I’ll pick up another on my way out,” Zip whispered back. “You’re awesome.”

  “Don’t mention it. A girl’s gotta eat.”

  She filled her second plate with bagels and fruit. Zip beamed, gathering up the plates, three bottled protein shakes, and a carton each of milk and orange juice.

  As soon as she walked out of the kitchen and into the main room of the hall, she started scanning for Underwood. It wasn’t hard to find him. He was sitting at a table alone in the corner, his back to the wall. The other kids— even the older Alphas— steered clear, leaving a zone of empty chairs surrounding him. She didn’t blame them. He made Ida Mae seem sweet by comparison, and Zip was almost convinced that Ida Mae Sullivan’s soul had been soaked in vinegar.

  But there was no running from Underwood. Not for her. So Zip took a deep breath and zeroed in on him.

  He had dark skin, so his scars were obvious to anyone that had eyes. He had a lot of them, too. Anywhere there was exposed skin, there were at least one or two scars. Underwood’s hands were peppered with pale little slashes, clustered mostly around his knuckles. Zip had never seen a kid her age with so many scars on their hands. Staring at his abused fingers, she caught sight of the name printed on the edge of the manila folder he was holding.

  Chance, Zipporah A.

  Zip goggled. She balanced her overflowing tray and trotted to his table as quickly as she dared.

  “Hey!” Zip said when he didn’t acknowledge her. She knew he’d seen her coming, though. The muscles in his shoulders had flexed and bunched up reflexively. He’d braced himself. “What’re you doing?”

  Underwood peered at her over the top of the folder. His dark eyebrows were beetled with annoyance. This was the third time she’d seen the son of the late, not-so-great Rook, and he’d managed to get grouchier each time. She’d never seen anyone walk out of the forum, much less yell at the Commander.

  “What does it look like?” Underwood demanded, unpleasant as ever. “I’m eating my breakfast.”

  Zip rolled on the balls of her feet. The urge to dash was almost overwhelming. It wasn’t that she was scared of him— really, he was just a big bully; she totally knew that— but that he had a nasty way of making her feel about two inches tall. Sheer stubbornness made her hold her ground. They were stuck with each other, and there was no way that she was going to stomach three whole years of his meanness.

  “And reading my file,” she said, chin raised.

  “Yes, I’m reading your file. Will you please leave me to it?”

  Zip took the seat across from him, slamming her tray down so forcefully, a bagel skittered across the table. Her mother had always said that she was a contrary little cuss. Underwood didn’t flinch or look up. He mechanically ate his scrambled eggs while he read, then moved on to his heap of mixed fruit.

  He probably thought that she’d give up if he gave her the cold shoulder for long enough. Well, that was where he was wrong. Zip wasn’t a quitter. She eyed his breakfast tray. It was nearly as loaded as hers.

  “You’re a big eater, huh.”

  “I have to eat a calorie-dense diet to maintain my weight. So do you, apparently.” He carefully turned a page between forkfuls of fruit. “Not surprising.”

  “I’m not fat,” she said defensively. Her thighs were kind of big, she thought sometimes, but it was muscle. She was a runner.

  “That is not what I said. You are uniquely built for speed. Your cardiovascular and respiratory systems are many times more efficient than a baseliner’s, but you must metabolize a vast amount of your caloric intake in order to support your physiology. You would not be able to sustain your powers if not for the fact that you metabolize ninety percent of the caloric energy available in what you eat. It’s remarkable.”

  It sounded like Underwood was memorizing her file, not just reading it. If he thought that memorizing it was worth his time, then he must have decided that she was, too.

  “Wow, I’m kinda neat on the inside.”

  “If you don’t understand how your abilities work, you’ll never understand your limits. This is basic stuff.”

  And there was that familiar shrinking feeling. It’d hurt a lot less if she didn’t know he was right. She bit into her second bagel, waiting for him to change the subject. But after that prickly piece of advice, Underwood went silent. He read and reread her file, continuing to eat his breakfast.

  For once in her life, Zip wasn’t hungry. Her appetite had shriveled up under his glare. She anxiously tore the rest of her bagel into chunks. Silence got to her. To her, five silent, uncomfortable minutes felt like a small eternity.

  She broke
the silence. She had to.

  “So, um,” she said, mashing her cooling, rubbery scrambled eggs with her fork. “Are you a runner, too?”

  “Odd,” he drawled, making a show of thumbing through the pages. “They failed to mention your colorblindness in here.”

  Zip felt her ears tingle with embarrassment. Well, of course he wasn’t a gold-band. The sleeves of his training shirt were navy blue, same as the band around his right wrist. All of the posters in the Academy wore the color associated with their powerset. Red was for elemental kinesis, orange was for body control, gold was for transportation, green was for energy manipulation, blue was for reality manipulation, purple was for psionics, and pink was for support powers. Academy assemblies were an honest to goodness rainbow.

  “I can see that you’re a blue-band and all, but I’ve never met a blue-band that has to eat like I do.”

  “Yes, well. I’m not like most blue-bands.”

  Zip paused, loaded fork poised halfway to her mouth. “Uh...you gonna elaborate on that?”

  “No. You should have read my file,” Underwood said flatly, turning another page.

  “I tried, smart guy. It’s sealed, so they won’t let me pull it.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said, his tone making it very clear that he’d known that she couldn’t get to his information. “For you, I mean.”

  She stuffed half a slice of toast in her mouth and chewed wrathfully. He was such a jerk. She couldn’t believe how big of a jerkface he was.

  “Do you always have a stick up your butt?” Zip asked through a mouthful of toast. “Or is it only when you’re hungry?”

  Underwood brushed the crumbs she’d sprayed off the file.

  “So. Sixty-seven. I was reviewing your scores. A two in strategy...a one in acting...you realize that you need to break one hundred if you want to join any law enforcement agency upon graduation, don’t you? And your combat score.” He clucked his tongue reproachfully, shaking his head. “Unfortunate.”

  He was trying to get her goat, but Zip wasn’t about to let him. Nobody got to treat her like that— not even Mr. Perfect Fifty. She wouldn’t rise to the bait.

  “Ain’t anything I didn’t know already, smart guy,” Zip said, forcing a smile. “So. Am I supposed to call you Underwood forever?”

  “No.” He looked up at her, very briefly. It was just a flick of his gaze before he returned to his reading. “My first name is Mal.”

  Mal. Well, that was a start.

  “That short for Malcolm?”

  Mal looked up at her again, quickly. His eyes narrowed.

  “No. It’s Malek.”

  “Oh, wow. That’s fancy.”

  “It’s Arabic.”

  “You’re Arabic?”

  “I am Arab,” Mal growled between his teeth. “The words are not interchangeable.”

  Zip shrank. “Sorry.”

  And she really was sorry, too. She hadn’t meant to insult him. She was just trying to drum up some small talk, but he was too snappy, too prickly, to hold up a decent conversation.

  “Your stupidity doesn’t surprise me,” he said, his voice all but dripping disdain. “Everyone knows that speedsters don’t take the time to think. You’re no better than a goldfish with legs.”

  Her heart bunched up in her throat, but she told herself that she wasn’t going to let him make her cry again.

  “No wonder you’re eating alone. Not even a saint could stand you.”

  He looked up, then looked away. Had Zip been a baseline human, she wouldn’t have caught the microexpression that flashed across his face. She didn’t experience time the way most people did, though. When her attention was focused on something, it was like the entire world turned syrupy-slow. Underwood flinched. For a fraction of a second, she saw hurt swell up in his eyes. Real hurt.

  Something in him agreed with her. He covered it up quickly, but not quickly enough to slip by a sharp-eyed speedster.

  “...to answer your question, I am an Alpha,” he said, glaring down at the file. He clenched his hands into fists on the table, the scars on his knuckles bone white. “And I heal. Cellular regeneration on a massive scale. That energy has to come from somewhere, so when I know I run the risk of injury, I eat more. It’s not strictly necessary, but it makes me more effective.”

  “But I thought that blue-bands were reality-benders.”

  “You’re not wrong. It’s complicated.”

  Zip sighed. “And you’re not gonna elaborate on that.”

  “Your ability to learn is a point in your favor,” Mal said, the corner of his mouth twitching with something that might have been a smirk, had it been on anyone else’s face.

  “Look. It doesn’t take a genius to tell that I’ve got my problems. But you’re right. I can learn. If you’ll help me with the book stuff, I’ll work my hardest. I swear I will.”

  For a few agonizing seconds, he was silent. Zip drummed her fingers on the edge of the table. She was brimming over with nervous energy.

  “They should have been helping you from the start,” Mal said, finally. “Your powers function as a learning disability if you’re unable to focus— attention deficit disorder to an exaggerated degree. I’m surprised you’ve made it this far.”

  “I made it here ‘cause I fight, Mal, and I fight hard. I’m not a wimp, okay? Now, are you going to help me or not?”

  “I’ll tutor you. But don’t expect me to hold your hand.”

  She couldn’t help the grin that split her face. The urge to run returned, but it’d be a couple dozen victory laps around Foundation, not an escape.

  “Okay, then. Wanna shake on it?”

  He rolled his eyes, closing the file.

  “No. I do not.”

  Well, he had said that he wouldn’t hold her hand. She’d kind of walked into that one.

  “I’ll see you in class tomorrow, Zipporah,” Mal said, picking up his tray and empty plates. “Don’t be late.”

  “I’m a speedster!” Zip laughed. “Speedsters are never late.”

  ISSUE #2

  Mal stretched, kicking restlessly at his blankets until they were wadded up at the foot of the bed. No matter what he did to get comfortable, restful sleep kept darting out of his reach. For years, falling asleep and staying that way had been a struggle, but he’d picked up some fairly reliable tricks.

  One of the most successful tricks was to work himself to exhaustion, so in the event of his brain being unfairly loud, his body would be too tired to listen. Since he hadn’t slept more than five hours combined since the funeral, he’d only had one goal in mind for the day before school started. He’d gone straight to the gym after breakfast with his unpleasant new partner and hadn’t left the training room until one of the combat instructors had shooed him out and locked the door behind him. Training had been a part of his daily life for as long as he could remember, so he was able to go through his routine effortlessly.

  After he’d plugged his headphones in, he hadn’t had to talk, think, or interact with anyone. For Mal, that was ideal. By the end of the day, he’d pushed himself until what had felt like peak fatigue. He’d hoped that the black spots that’d briefly buzzed in his vision during his climb upstairs had been a sign that he would easily fall asleep the moment he hit the mattress.

  But he’d been wrong. Instead of providing him a ticket to dreamland, his plan left him awake and aching, too restless to sleep and too sore to do anything but lay in bed and stew. His posterpowers automatically healed serious injuries, but it didn’t touch smaller bodily complaints like cramps and soreness. He was getting better at controlling his healing abilities, and could push the process if he concentrated hard, but he didn’t have the mental clarity. His head buzzed with the white noise and static of tiredness.

  When he rolled from his side to his stomach, something sharp pressed against his neck— sharp enough to gag him, but not sharp enough to break skin. Mal jerked back instinctively, fumbling to protect his throat, but his fingers wrapped ar
ound wood, not a dull blade. His necklace had gotten twisted up during his tossing and turning, knotting up so that the rook’s wing had jabbed into the sensitive hollow of his throat.

  Faintly embarrassed by his overreaction, he gingerly untangled the necklace. He held the leather cord pinched between his thumbs and fingertips, the lumpy wooden rook dangling over his nose. He wondered if it was his personal association or Elouise’s poor craftsmanship that made it look more like a bird that had been hanged than a bird in flight; either way, it was apt. He puffed a hard breath, setting the pendant swinging. Its bead eyes caught the milky moonlight and sparked.

  The necklace was homely as hell, but he didn’t have the heart to throw it away. Elouise would be cross if she found out that he’d destroyed her gift. The likelihood of seeing her in the next four years wasn’t high, but he ignored the thought, determined not to dwell on the losses he was only just beginning to feel. Mal tucked the pendant under his shirt, curling up on his side and closing his eyes. He clutched the rook through the fabric, feeling out the softened angles of its wings.

  Rationally, he knew that his father was gone. He knew that he was dead and buried, but a part of him was still waiting for him to knock on his door and rouse him for training. With his eyes closed, Mal could almost convince himself that nothing had changed. It was an incomplete illusion, though. Even with his window open, the air was clean and sterile, all of the night filtered out. Foundation tried very hard to present itself as the wilderness, but now that Mal had experienced the outside world, he saw it for what it was: just a little bit off. That unnatural off-ness clung to his teeth like the aftertaste of an artificial sweetener.

  He wondered how long it would take him to readjust to Foundation. He wondered how long he’d miss the wet, living smell of Portland’s streets at night. He wondered how long it would take him to stop waiting for his father to knock on his door.