Robison Wells - Blackout

“We all have something called a Lambda rating. I don’t know what Lambda means—that wasn’t on the chart. Jack, you’re a Lambda 4T, which means you’d be best suited for tactical intelligence, which I think means reconnaissance. I’m a Lambda 4O—that’s operational intelligence. I’m not sure what that means.”

“What about me?” Matt asked.

“You had an asterisk,” she said. “That means ‘currently uncategorized.’”

“Figures,” he said, annoyed. “Not much call for basketball in the army.” Matt had been diagnosed with a very mild form of telekinesis: without realizing it, he’d been guiding all his throws by gently nudging the path of the ball.

Jack laughed. “Think of how well you could throw a grenade.”

“And that’s probably it,” Matt said.

“Laura,” Josi said, “you were the only five—a Lambda 5D, which means Direct Weapon Use.”

“Nice,” one of the guys said. “Kickin’ ass and taking names.”

Laura only smiled.

Josi went through the rest of the list. There were a lot of twos—designated as “Civilian Use” —and a couple of ones—“No practical use.” Eddie, with the hot breath, got that one, and he was pissed. So did a girl who could change something’s color by touching it. She laughed it off and said she was glad—she saw a life ahead of her as an interior designer.

The threes were all logistics—a kid who could fix anything mechanical, another who was some kind of human calculator, and a handful more.

The fours were all intelligence. Nicole got lumped in there, same as Jack: Lambda 4T. Little Cesar Carbajal, the kid who could instantly count anything he could see, was also put in intelligence, which seemed to make Eddie even angrier.

The fives were the weapons. Josi said this was broken down into several categories, but the only one in the room was Laura.

It was a 3L, a sort of healer, who asked the question on everyone’s minds. “Does this mean we’re all going to be drafted?”

“We’re too young to be drafted,” Jack said. “Well, most of us are. Who here is eighteen or older?”

Laura and Josi were the only ones who raised their hands.

“See?” Jack said. “And girls don’t have to sign up for selective service. We’re not going to get drafted.”

“Maybe it’s in case we want to join up?” Laura said.

Eddie shook his head. “Who would want to join up after this?”

“I don’t blame them,” Laura said. “They said that the terrorists have this same virus, and they’re using it against our country—against America. I’m not just going to go back to school and the mall and pretend we’re not at war.”

“After what they did to you?” Eddie pressed.

“Don’t you think they were right to be nervous?” she said. “They didn’t know if we were terrorists. I wouldn’t trust me, if I were in their shoes. Why do you think they put these GPS trackers on our legs?” Laura pulled her leg up under her and tapped the ankle bracelet.

There was a pause, and then the 3L boy with the strange mechanical affinity pointed to his own bracelet. “They’re not GPS trackers.”

Everyone in the room looked at him. He was maybe sixteen, and extremely skinny and pale. “I’ve been messing with it. They’re not GPS. They’re bombs.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the room erupted in noise. Jack had to force himself to lower his hearing, block out the painful sound.

It was Laura who shouted everyone down. “Get a grip, people! Shut up and let the kid talk!”

He looked at her shyly but gratefully. “It’s a small explosive charge. Probably not enough to kill you, but it’d take off your foot. If you try to cut through the plastic, it will explode. And it can be detonated remotely.”

Eddie glared at Laura. “These are the people who you’re giving the benefit of the doubt?”

She stared back. “Yes. If you had a room of people who were potentially terrorists—who were human weapons that you couldn’t disarm—wouldn’t you take some kind of action to control them?”

Jack didn’t want to think about it. Instead he sat back and tried to block them out. He focused his attention elsewhere. Deodorant and cologne. He could still smell it, fainter, but present. He walked to the door and closed his eyes. The smell seemed to paint a picture in his mind, to leave a trail that filled spaces and marked objects.

The man had left their room and had gone left, his scent leaving a lingering picture of a narrow space—a hallway—before turning . . . was it to the right? Yes. To the right, down another hallway. There was a stronger scent there—a handprint on the wall, then another on a doorknob, and the man entered a large room where his scent spread to fill a much bigger space. Air vents were running through this room, but just churned his smell around, mixing it with the sage and dust of the outside air.

Jack could see it all—or smell it. It was like all his senses were blending together. He knew the shape of the halls by the way the remnants of cologne filled them. Jack knew, without a doubt, that he could walk directly to the man—with his eyes closed.

The man was still there. Jack listened. Water ran through pipes, electrical outlets hummed, as Jack retraced the path from him to the man. He could hear the air ducts in the man’s room—small, whirring, and metal, probably vents in the ceiling.

The man was flicking through the papers. He was marking them, the scratch of his pencil—no, a smoother sound; a pen—making notes every few seconds.

There was a sudden buzz and whir, which died down quickly, and soon the man began to type. Jack could hear each keystroke.

A hand touched Jack’s shoulder and he started. He spun to see the rest of the kids staring at him.

“What are you doing?” Josi asked.

“Listening,” Jack said. “He’s grading our tests.”

AUBREY WAS IN THE ROOMfor three days, and it slowly filled with people. On the first day she was handcuffed to a desk while she took a full day’s worth of handwritten exams. She wasn’t sure what the tests indicated, but on the second day a soldier unchained her and let her roam freely around the room.

She didn’t know anyone there, but they were all like her. They all took the same tests, they all were looked on with the same level of suspicion. Some tried to be studious and alert. There was a boy at the end of the row who acted like he was in the army—saluting and standing at attention and calling everyone “sir.” A girl told Aubrey that he could superheat his body, whatever that meant. She never saw him do it. On the other hand, there was a girl who lay in bed all day and cried. She never got up for announcements or for meals or for anything, and on the third day an army medic came in and gave her an IV. Aubrey didn’t know what that girl’s power was.

It was nearly evening; there were no windows in this room, but there was a big clock on the far wall. The door opened, but instead of dinner, it was an officer in a full dress uniform. He was young, maybe only a few years older than Aubrey, and he held a clipboard.

“May I have your attention,” he said, his voice shaking the tiniest bit.

Everyone in the room quieted down. Aubrey sat up on the edge of her bed.

“The following people are requested to attend a meeting with Colonel Jensen. If your name is on this list we ask that you please exit this room in an orderly manner. There is no need to bring anything with you.”

There were a few murmurs but he ignored them and began to read the names.

“Joel Read, Lambda 5M,” the man said, and the boy at the end of the row shouted out a “Sir, yes sir!”