Chương 31: Chapter 30 - Miller Explains

As soon as the first session was over, I grabbed Wes by the sleeve and dragged him over to Reisig. I told Reisig that I had to go somewhere, but I hoped to be back shortly after the second session started. Then I dragged Wes out into the hall.

"You don't mind being late to your next class, do you?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Why?"

"I want you to help me find Miller. I have to talk to him."

"That's easy. He's in Wuller's office. Second floor."

"Third floor."

"We don't have a third floor." When I realized my mistake, I grunted.

"Basement, ground floor, first floor, second floor—right?"

"Yeah?"

"No wonder I keep getting lost. You can't even number your floors right." I batted his arm.

"Come on. Conrad says you're my guardian."

"Your guardian?" A huge smile bloomed on the kid's face. I started walking.

"Watch it. If your head gets any bigger, we'll have to pop it like a balloon." Wes was only a step behind me.

"No, no. I get it. You've had a rough two days." I stopped and pointed at him.

"I'm not a fair maiden."

"Oh," he frowned and shook his head, "of course not. Obviously." We made it a few feet further down the hall.

"But the wolfman called me a guardian?" I rolled my eyes and kept walking. We found Miller on the third (aka, second) floor as he was walking toward Wuller's office.

"Miller!" I cried. I motioned for Wes to hang back while I ran to catch up with the assistant. Miller had looked around when I called his name, but then he turned back.

"Ah, Miss Cole." His pace picked up.

"Is there something I can do for you?"

"I have a few questions, if you don't mind."

"I, uh…I'm afraid I'm rather busy." I caught up to him and matched my pace to his.

"Cool. I'm not."

"Well, then—""That means that I can follow you around while you work." The assistant stopped and let out a sigh so large, I had to wonder where he'd been storing all the air. He turned to me.

"Is this about what happened between me and Reisig?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry that you had to see that, but I don't think it'd be proper—""It's only a few questions, Alex." Using his first name was mean, but what I did next probably made some imp in hell cackle and put a chalk mark up by my name.

"I'd like to hear your side of the story." He hesitated, then took a step toward me and lowered his voice.

"Has Reisig been talking about me?"

"He told me a few things."

"What kind of things?"

"He told me that you applied for his job." Miller leaned back on the wall. I took a step closer and leaned on the wall beside him.

"That was a long time ago," he said.

"A year is a long time?"

"Sometimes a year can be interminable." I shut my mouth and listened. Miller said, "When the powers first started appearing, we needed a way to track what was happening. Wuller and I worked together to create a system. Mr. Wuller is… he's a good man, and normally, he's a conscientious scholar, but he wanted it all to be true so badly. Sometimes he'd get angry with me, but then he'd laugh and say I was exactly what he needed. The common sense he didn't have." Did you know this story is from Royal Road?

Read the official version for free and support the author. I thought back over the papers that Darius had brought into the room and the labels on the back of every automatic sketch.

"You took the earliest notes, didn't you?" I asked.

"I kept all the records and acted as the instructor until Mr. Reisig was hired. I knew he'd be taking over then, so I tried to set out more of my process, to give him a guide he could use to help him keep the records consistent, but…well, you've seen the problem. Maybe it was foolish of me to think that someone else could adapt to my thinking."

"You're the skeptical one?" A hesitant smile appeared.

"That, uh…that word—it has different meanings, depending on who you're talking to. Maybe 'cautious' would be a better word. I'm not so excited by the powers that I'll believe anyone who claims to have them. I think our first duty is to establish standards and gather information. The more we know, the more we can help these boys call up their powers and control them."

"So it's not about discrediting Reisig?" Miller grimaced.

"I don't suppose there's much point in pretending that Reisig and I are friends—we're not—but I think he's a valuable member of the staff. If he left, it'd be hard to replace him."

"Couldn't you do it?" The assistant shook his head, then mumbled, "I understand that now. Wuller was right to choose Reisig over me."

"You don't think you could keep up with all the paperwork?" My voice was half teasing, half serious. His answer was all serious: "It's not the paperwork that scares me, Miss Cole."

"What is it?"

"It's the powers." He turned his head, as if he meant to look at me, but his gaze stayed fixed on my shoes.

"Even before we hired Reisig, more and more of the boys were coming forward, showing abilities. I thought, surely, there had to be an end to it, but there wasn't. It was one inexplicable event after another. But only one! Levitation, clairvoyance, clairauditory, the automatic drawings—why only one or two events? Nothing we tried could induce the powers to manifest again. I started to wonder if the boys weren't tapping into their own powers, but something else was reaching out, tapping into them, then moving on.

I caught myself looking over my shoulder. I felt like something was watching me." I had to stop myself from turning around. I knew there was nothing behind me except the wall and a few shadows. The shadows were getting heavier by the second. Miller tried to smile and failed.

"A paranoid teacher would hardly be a good teacher, even if they can handle the paperwork. Every now and then, I miss the boys, but I think they're better off with Reisig." I didn't know what to say. The silence was filled with a sense of unspoken sorrow.

"Is there anything else I can help you with, Miss Cole?" His bright tone might have been faked, but it was enough to jar me out of my stillness. I almost told him no, but then I remembered.

"What's so special about the pyros?" I asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"When I was talking to you two days ago, you said that Reisig had consulted here before the first pyrokinetics had been found. Why did you draw the line there?" Miller tapped his fingers on the file he was holding. When he finally answered, it was a mumble.

"Maybe I am the skeptical one, but you see, Miss Cole, I'm fairly sure that all the claims before the pyros were fake."

"All of them?"

"It's hard to say since they were all involuntary, subjective talents, but that's what I thought. That's why I only started keeping records when the pyros appeared." I fell silent again. Miller shifted from foot to foot.

"Any other questions?"

"No." I took a deep breath.

"No, thank you. I'll leave you alone now." He nodded to me, then turned and continued down the hall. I stayed where I was. A minute later, Wes came and leaned on the wall beside me.

"How did it go?" he asked. I frowned and tossed myself off the wall by an inch so I could settle with my back to the wall instead of my arm.

"Wes, you were one of the earliest pyrokinetics, weren't you?"

"Emerra, I was the earliest pyrokinetic."

"The first one?"

"Very first. That was scary as hell. Dustin wakes me up, screaming my name. I can't figure out why it's so hot, or why it smells so bad. Then I see all the flames." I said with a grin, "You didn't notice them first?"

"It was the middle of the night! I could barely get my eyes open. I thought Dustin was having another bad dream and had turned on the light or something. Nope! It's me. I'm on fire. My bed's on fire. I start freaking out, I'm too scared to even realize that it doesn't hurt. Dustin reaches through the flames, grabs me, and hauls me out onto the floor. Pure chaos. Alarms are going off everywhere. Someone comes in with a fire extinguisher.

Dustin has me off in the corner of our room, and he's checking everywhere to see if I'm burned."

"Were you burned?"

"Not a bit. I was starkers 'cause I didn't know how to control anything—my arms kept igniting whenever I got scared—but my clothes and the mattress had the worst of it. Turner comes in to find out what happened. Dustin wouldn't say anything, and I didn't know what to tell him. I thought I was going to be expelled—so, naturally, my hands light up again. Whoomph." He raised his hands to demonstrate. A lick of fire rolled over them.

"Sorry," he said, shaking them out. He went on, "When Turner saw that, he called in Wuller. Wuller called in Miller. It's two in the morning, and I'm suddenly the most popular kid around—except they have to keep a bucket of water for me to dunk my hands in until I've calmed down some more." I chuckled.

"That's right," he said, smiling.

"I couldn't scrape together a gram of dignity. Now you know the dark truth of this place. All those fancy reports and science-sounding papers—they all started with me, naked and terrified." I had no doubt that Wes had shared all the details of that lovely story to make me feel better about my panic attack. My heart glowed with gratitude and fondness.

"Was Miller a good teacher?" I asked.

"A good teacher?" Wes scratched his head.

"He was decent. I liked him—we all did—but he wasn't great. Class with him was one big science experiment. Reisig isn't anywhere near as fun, but he teaches us stuff. He coaches us on what to do. Brown—he's a clairvoyant—he said that Reisig admitted he didn't know how to use the claircognitive abilities, so he organized a project where they did research to figure out what they could do to encourage their powers. The whole class. And they all did it because it mattered. It wasn't busywork."

"Did it work?" Wes shrugged. I sighed.

"Come on, we better get you back to class."

"Don't you need a guardian?"

"You can take me back to the old gym, then go to class." I pushed away from the wall and started toward the stairs. Wes followed me.

"But this is the perfect excuse! I might not have to go to class again the whole time you're here."

"Conrad isn't a teacher. He can't give you a pass."

"Yeah, but who's going to argue with him?"