Chương 45: Five Days to Failure

"Company, rise and shine!" The sergeant's voice cracked through the barracks like splintering timber.

"Cadet Thompson, outside! Move it!" I lazily turned my head, watching the sergeant drag Nick away. These days he no longer wasted time on the whole mob and only took his one precious trainee. Apparently headquarters really had given me complete carte blanche over Ted's training. A reckless thought flashed through my mind: I could just let the guy sleep another hour and a half until breakfast. Curl up under the blanket and finish his dreams. Of course, I was not going to do that.

The stakes in this war were far too high.

"Let's hit the field!" Ted practically bounced in place, glowing with the kind of enthusiasm you would expect from a party with chips and girls, not from a sweat-soaked training session from hell.

"I can't wait to see the sergeant's face in a week when I crank out more pull-ups than he can!" Now everything made sense. The guy had convinced himself that I was some kind of friendly wizard who could turn him into Superman with a snap of my fingers. The poor bastard was headed for a brutal disappointment. Though honestly, not nearly as brutal as what the standard approach would have done to him.

"Slow down, Ted." I stopped him by the exit and gave him the most serious look I could manage.

"Before we start, I need you to promise me something. Total composure and no pointless chatter. Got it?"

"What?" He froze by the door.

"Remember a couple days ago when I was sitting in the barracks filling out that notebook? You and Nick said I was scribbling like a maniac and ignoring everything around me."

"Oh, yeah. You seriously looked like you were in a trance, Tom. We kept calling you, and you just didn't react at all."

"That's a side effect of my ability." I lowered my voice, creating the right atmosphere.

"I can enter a state of hyperfocus. It lets me achieve phenomenal results, but while I'm in it, I completely disconnect from the outside world. I become a machine. You get what I'm saying?" Ted frowned, trying to process it.

"Kind of… like deep meditation or something?"

"Something like that. And I'm going to use it during your training. It'll squeeze every last bit of potential out of your body."

"That's awesome!" His eyes lit up again with excitement.

"But how're you gonna pull that off? The S-Powers are suppressed all around camp."

"Think back to what Selina said during lectures. Even under suppressors, we still retain a tiny fraction of our abilities. That's my case. My brain can still function in that mode."

"Hell yeah! Then what're we waiting for? Let's go!" I placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, forcing the hyperactive puppy to stand still.

"Hold on. There's one catch. In full concentration mode, I turn into a soulless robot. I'll give orders: what to do, how to do it, and how many times. But you won't be able to ask me anything. No jokes, no whining, no arguments. Pretend I'm an ATM. You just follow the instructions on the screen if you want your cash at the end. If you start screwing around or pushing back, the transaction gets canceled. No money. No biceps. You agree to those terms?"

"Just start already, Tom!" He waved me off with a grin, clearly not taking my warning seriously. I could tell he did not fully grasp the scale of the disaster heading his way, but there was no time left for psychology lectures. We had already wasted five minutes. [Special command: conduct the perfect training session for Ted] The world around me instantly collapsed inward. The noise of the camp, the smell of the barracks, the distant shouts of sergeants, all of it faded into white noise.

At the center of my universe remained only one object: an awkward teenager with terrible posture and soft muscles. Time accelerated for me, turning into a sequence of frames. I drove him through warm-ups. My hands moved automatically, correcting the position of his body and adjusting every angle to perfection. I made sure each movement not only stressed the muscle properly, but also avoided restricting blood flow or pinching nerve endings.

During the run, I practically hammered his feet into the ground, forcing him to lift his knees higher and stop dragging his legs like a decrepit old man. When it came to push-ups, I pressed a hand against his back and forced him deeper and deeper, right to the edge where joint safety remained intact while maximum efficiency was achieved. To me, it all came as flashes: movement, correction, result. When I finally surfaced back into reality, the world regained its colors and sounds.

We were standing on the training field. Ted lay sprawled on the grass with his arms spread wide. His face was the color of an overripe tomato, and his T-shirt was soaked badly enough to wring into a bucket. He wheezed desperately, trying to pull air into his lungs.

"You okay, man?" I asked carefully, feeling my consciousness slowly settle back into its normal rhythm.

"I'm fucking dead… completely…" he gasped, staring blankly into the sky. Real anger rang in his voice.

"You should try it yourself when every damn movement gets corrected! You're worse than the sergeant, Tom! That was fucking hell!" I felt the tips of my ears starting to burn. An awkward feeling. I knew I could not just stay silent, but trying to justify myself would have been wrong too. I had known exactly what I was doing. I had risked his loyalty for results… or maybe, deep down, I just did not want to embarrass myself in front of Selina.

"Those corrections are the only way to get one hundred percent out of an exercise," I said, trying to give my voice enough weight so it would not sound like an apology.

"Professional athletes pay thousands of dollars for personal trainers who push them like that."

"I don't give a damn about them." Ted irritably wiped sweat from his eyes.

"I'm not an athlete. I just wanted to do ten extra pull-ups." This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Give me five days." I held out my hand to him.

"If you don't see a different person in the mirror after five days, I'll hand you back to the sergeant. Deal?" Ted stared at my hand for a long moment with visible doubt. Resentment and stubborn determination battled in his eyes. Finally, he reluctantly grabbed my hand and pulled himself up.

"Five days, Tom. Not an hour more. If this doesn't work, I'm done."

"Deal. Now get to the showers. By the way, where's Nick? Don't tell me they're still running."

"Are you kidding?" Ted looked at me like I had lost my mind.

"They finished forever ago. While you were squeezing the life out of me, Nick had time to shower and eat breakfast." I raised my wrist and checked the time. Eight twenty in the morning. Jesus Christ. I had worked him for more than two hours and completely lost track of time inside my trance. Selina's lecture started in ten minutes.

"Move your ass back to the barracks!" I barked, switching into emergency mode.

"Get changed and haul ass to the classroom! I'll try to hit the mess hall and grab whatever's left." I took off like a Loz'an strike team was on my heels. I made it at the last possible second, the cooks had already started clearing the serving line. I practically shoveled the cold leftovers of breakfast down my throat, grabbed Ted's protein shake, and sprinted toward the academic building while still chewing.

My heart slammed against my ribs, and only one thought kept looping through my head: Professor Langstrom absolutely hated tardiness. Ted burst into the classroom barely a minute before Selina started the lecture. The sight was pathetic. His hair was still damp and tangled, hanging over his forehead in wet clumps. Apparently he had attempted some kind of ultrafast shower and forgotten towels existed for a reason. His uniform sat crooked on him, one pant leg was rolled up, and the buttons were fastened wrong.

He looked terrible, and to make things worse, I intercepted him at the entrance like some sadistic bastard and practically poured a cup of gray sludge down his throat, forcing him to drink every last drop. Watching the nausea twist across his face hit me with a sharp stab of guilt. This screwup was completely on me. I had volunteered to be his mentor, I had convinced headquarters to give me that damn carte blanche, and now my trainee looked like he had just survived a trip through a concrete mixer.

"Jesus, Ted, you reek," Mary said, dramatically pinching her nose and scooting to the edge of the bench.

"Don't even think about sitting next to me. It's unbearable." Yeah, two minutes under hot water was not enough to erase the aftermath of a two-hour endurance marathon. A thick smell of sweat drifted through the classroom. Louisa opened every window. Ted shot me a look filled with quiet hatred. Honestly, he had every right to. His ruined morning, his humiliation in front of the girls, all of it was my fault.

I needed to solve the timing issue before tomorrow morning, otherwise I was going to lose his trust along with whatever authority I still had.

The third and final lecture about the Loz'an came to an end. It was foolish to think anyone could study an entire intelligent civilization from another world in just four and a half hours. But Selina had been right: the Corps did not need cultural experts or linguists. They needed efficient killing machines. Knowing the details of Loz'an wedding rituals or the structure of their poetry would not help us survive inside a portal. And I agreed with that. Cold, pragmatic wartime logic.

The Loz'an were invading us because their own world was dying. Sooner or later they would simply vanish from the universe and become nothing more than a line in some future history textbook, assuming humanity even bothered to write one. Why waste memory on the names of their pop stars or recipes for their favorite food when their species might cease to exist in a few years? We did not even study their language. What was the point of talking to someone you planned to disintegrate?

"That concludes our Loz'an module," Selina announced, shutting off the projector with a sharp motion. The alarm clock on her desk beeped, marking the end of class.

"But don't rush out yet. I've got something important for you." She pulled five thick white folders from her desk drawer and spread them across the table like a fan of cards.

"These contain my personal assessments," she said, resting a hand on the stack of papers.

"I analyzed the data from your military intake interviews and prepared recommendations for developing your abilities. These aren't instructions, only a direction for growth. Inside each folder you'll find a schedule with the exact day and time for your sessions with Master Smith. During those hours he'll remove the S-Power suppression and supervise your individual training. Dismissed." The teenagers swarmed the folders like starving seagulls.

They nearly ripped them from each other's hands in their rush to get out into the hallway and devour the contents.

"Tom, I'd like you to stay behind," Selina said in a dry tone that left no room for argument. Being left alone with authority figures was always a bad sign, even when that authority figure looked like a well-read blonde in glasses. Something inside me tightened automatically, bracing for a verbal execution.

"How's your experiment with Cadet Drake progressing?" she asked without looking up from her journal.

"We've hit a wall so far, but I'm not planning to quit."

"I see." She cut me off so quickly that it became obvious the question had only been a formality.

"Let's talk about your folder. I scheduled hours for you with Master Smith, but keep this in mind: most of my recommendations can and should be applied without active energy use."

"Understood." I tightened my grip on the folder, feeling answers to countless questions hidden beneath the cardboard cover.

"Is that all? Can I go?"

"No, I'm only getting started." She pressed her lips together slightly, clearly irritated by my impatience.

"Your case is unusual. Your folder's incomplete. I'm missing data regarding one of your core abilities."

"Which one?"

"Evolution." She adjusted her glasses, and for a moment the fluorescent lights reflected in the lenses like a predator's eyes.

"To understand the mechanics of your gift, I reviewed every available source on evolutionary processes on Earth. I even studied the Pokémon phenomenon." I froze, nearly dropping the folder.

"You're seriously telling me you watched a kids' cartoon to figure me out?"

"No. There're far too many episodes. That would've been an irrational use of time." She shook her head, keeping an entirely serious expression.

"But I did read the analytical articles and wiki resources. You know, Tom, information from popular culture can sometimes lead to very interesting conclusions about awakened abilities." I let out a silent whistle in my head. Her thoroughness bordered on insanity, and somehow it was still impressive. I had compared myself to Pokémon hundreds of times, but it had never occurred to me to actually research their evolution system.

"So. I've got questions. Answer as precisely as possible. Everything concerns the period after your awakening." She opened a notebook and raised her pen, waiting.

"Have you engaged in physical fights with other people?"

"Yeah." Faces of sparring partners and instructors flashed through my memory.

"Did you see any kind of visual interface? Notifications about gained experience? Evolution points?"

"No. Nothing like that."

"Have you fought other awakened individuals?"

"Yeah. Master Smith here at camp."

"While your S-Power was suppressed?"

"Exactly."

"Have you ever taken a human life?"

"No."

"Have you ever consumed human flesh?"

"No." I answered quickly and precisely, keeping my face as expressionless as possible, like I was sitting through a psychiatric evaluation. Moments like this were not the time for jokes, clarifications, or smart remarks. Just Yes or No. Any unnecessary word could set the wrong gears spinning inside that analytical machine she called a brain.

"That's enough for today," Selina said half an hour later after filling nearly three pages with tiny handwriting.

"I need time to organize this information. I'll update your recommendations in a week."

"Thanks, Selina," I said, though I did not leave right away. The curiosity I had been suppressing the entire time finally broke through.

"I've got a question too. What's your superpower?"