Chapter 2

I awoke in a cell. I broke the restraints on my arms and legs. The door was locked but the cell was obviously not prepared to hold someone of more than average strength or intelligence. I stepped into a hallway with cement walls painted white, accompanied ugly white and green speckled tiles on the floor. The windows were thick glass, infused with bulletproof plastic (I could tell from the wavering around the installation points). The windows displayed a green courtyard, with a bunch of archery targets directly in front of an intense looking jungle gym. I was able to draw two conclusions: this was some sort of training facility,  and there was no accounting for safety in the design of this place. I walked farther down the hallway, my footsteps echoing. The place had a feeling of emptiness, but I knew that it wasn’t from the sheer amount of thoughts I could hear.

I figured that there were a lot of people in this building, but they were all  in the same place. Rather than planning my escape, I stupidly set out to find the mass of people here. I quickly found out that the place was huge, filled with rooms that appeared to be classrooms. There were several vast courtyards, and the second floor appeared to be some sort of dormitory. On the third floor I found the source of the mental noise. There was a giant hall with ceiling high windows. Sunlight glistened off of the floor, making it  hard to see straight ahead. On the left, there was some sort of office complex with glass walls, and on the right there were several sets of doors. From that wall I could hear a large booming voice. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I tried to swing the doors open covertly but they were heavy and the hinges squeaked after they flew open. About 237 heads turned to look at me.

The place seemed to be a large auditorium, but only the middle section of the front part was filled. There was a large stage with several official looking adults on it, but the audience was all teenagers or young adults. There was a slide projected on the stage with what looked like battle plans. The most prominent-looking person on the stage was an old man at a mic stand. “And here she is, the famous Melisandra Alber,” he said. “We were just talking about you. Have a seat.”

“It’s Lisa,” I shouted with scorn. I really did hate my given name. I sat down in the nearest seat in the back, next to a handsome but annoying looking boy. I sat because I figured that there wasn’t really a more efficient way to figure out what this place was and what they wanted with me at the moment. I also had the feeling that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave.

“Hi,” The boy next to me whispered. I turned and gave him my best never-speak-to-me-again look. He smiled in response, and I then turned to pay attention to the presentation.

“Anyways, as I was saying before Lisa so rudely interrupted us, we have located Alber’s main research lab.” He turned towards me. “Not you, obviously. We have sufficient plans to destroy the lab. We believe that we can assassinate Alber, now that we have our secret weapon.” He looked at me again. This time I wouldn’t meet his gaze. I knew what revelation was coming to the other kids in the auditorium,and I knew that they were going to hate me.

“Our secret weapon, as I’m sure you’ve figured out,is Miss Alber. What makes her so special, may you ask? The answer can be found in each and every one of her cells. Her DNA was handcrafted by Adrenilda Alber herself, using her own as the original template. Lisa is the most powerful human being ever to be born. Her genes were engineered perfectly, her powers surpass anything any other scientist has ever been able to create. Adrenilda herself can’t even replicate her original masterpiece. Alber created her to be her own secret weapon, but we’ve found her, and she could be the key to ending this horrible war and taking down Alber’s empire. With Lisa here, we finally have a fighting chance.” The audience cheered.

“Who says I’ll fight for you?” The applause ended abruptly; you could’ve heard a pin drop in the silence. “I certainly didn’t. Did you assume that because I was made to be a soldier that I will fight for whatever random people kidnap me? Hell no. I don’t even know who you people are. I’d like to at least know who I’m fighting for before they have me pledge allegiance to them. Just because I was made to fight doesn’t mean I necessarily want to. If you don’t mind, I’d like to decide what happens in my own life.”

“Living in peace is not an option Miss Alber, ” A woman said from the stage. She was tall, with dark skin and hair. She was dressed like an agent, suit and earpiece. “Your clone has killed millions of people. The unengineered are being killed in camps by the thousands, they are being experimented on in the worst ways possible. Diseases are ravaging the world, diseases that she made. People are being killed by her all over the world. ” The Agent looked angry. I figured that she probably lost someone to Alber’s campaign.

“Peace or not, I won’t fight,” I said. “Not until I know who you people are and what you’re planning.”

I stayed at the meeting and it turned out that I was being held captive by the government of the United States, and the old man was President Harrison Mills.They told me their assassination plan, and I quickly found the flaws but I kept the most critical ones to myself. I only made a few small suggestions, like avoid the forest and don’t go to the top of the mountains etc, but only to appear as if I were cooperating.After, all I didn’t know if I could trust these people just yet. After the meeting was over, kids flooded out of the auditorium. The agent who had spoken to me before about a peaceful life came to escort me to my new room. “Agent Angelina Coll,” She reluctantly saluted, “At your service. I am going to take you to your new room.”

To break the awkward silence, I decided to start asking the questions that had been eating at my mind since I woke up. Questions like what is this place, who are all of those kids, what exactly am I doing here, why would they put an archery range underneath a jungle gym, and some others. Agent C told me that the place was called the National Academy for the Gifted. Back before the war, it housed kids who had special talents, savants in music, art, and technology. Now that there is a war raging on, the government decided to turn it into a training facility for the genetic experiments that they liberated from the AGP. Coll told me that all of the kids here had powers like I did, but none of them quite like mine. She said that I was special, I was far more genetically advanced than even the most skilled person here. Agent C told me that they intended to train me here, and have me form a team that would carry out the assassination mission. I told her that I wasn’t much of a team player, but Coll told me that I would have to learn to be. She didn’t seem to understand that usually the other members of the team had a problem with working with me, not the other way around.

“Here you go,” Agent C said. She handed me a duffel bag that probably would have been heavy to a normal person. “This is your room. If you have any problems or complaints, feel free to notify the office about it, or any of the agents if it is really urgent.  But I would rather you not bother me.” Coll then faked a call on her earpiece and walked away in a hurry. Coll was kind of a b***h, but I liked her. I swung open the door to my room to find that I was to be living in a can of pink paint.

The walls and furniture were pink and the girl hanging flowers on the wall was not pink herself; but covered in pink clothing. Before my mind was able to process any thought other than the word “pink”, The girl turned around, jumped off of her footstool and hugged me at a superhuman speed. “Hi Lisa! I’m Annabell, your new roommate! I made your bed for you and cleared out a couple drawers,” She smiled at me. I looked to see that the bed with my name on it was covered in a pink fluffy blanket with at least sixteen small pillows.

“Um, thanks Annabell,” I walked over to the bed and started to pull things out of my duffel bag. In the bag was several versions of the same gray uniform,  gray pants, a black t shirt and a light gray jacket.There were some longer t-shirts and a heavier jacket so I figured wherever we were it probably got seasonally colder. I received a pair of heavy- duty black boots, and several pairs of thick socks. These new clothes weren’t exactly pretty, but they were cleaner and nicer than what I was wearing. I had on three big sweaters and an old jacket, ripped up jeans, and old worn-out boots that weren’t the right size. The whole ensemble was topped with a fine layer of dirt that just wouldn’t wash out.

“Need any help?” Annabell asked. I finally got a good look at her face, because she finally wasn’t trying to hug me. Annabell’s very short and very thin, with smooth dark skin and perfect shiny hair. Her eyes are a dark emerald green that don’t quite fit in with her coloring.  She has an annoyingly bright smile on her pretty face. “I could put your stuff away.  You know these gross clothes are just your training gear. After hours they let you wear whatever. There’s even a sort of thrift store with better clothes in it, except you don’t have to pay you just take it. We could go there later, there’s all kinds of stuff. What’s this?” She said, yanking a quilt out of my bag. “It’s hideous.”

“It’s mine,” I said, yanking it out of her hands. “I had this on me when they attacked.”

“When who attacked?”

I looked at her with surprise. “Who do you think?” Her smile faded a little.

“Oh. I didn’t know that they kidnapped you. I thought-”

“That I came willingly? What would make you think that? My outrageous joy to be in this pink nightmare of a room? ” I moved my bag out of her reach and turned my back to her. She walked back to her side of the room.

After about a half an hour of sitting in awkward silence, a loud bell rang. “Lunchtime!” Annabell said. “You can sit with me.” The idea of dining with my new roommate was borderline revoting, but I appreciated the invitation to a seat once we walked into the lunchroom. Every person’s head turned as I walked by, their expressions pretty much filled with absolute wonder and defensiveness, but those who stuck out to me most are the ones who looked at me with hate. My unbearable likeness to the evil Alber caused some to project their hatred of her on to me, although I had never done anything wrong. There was one girl who set her lunch on fire as I walked past. The room was free of noise, but the thoughts I could hear made my head want to explode. People were thinking things like, That unbelievable b***h, and,  How dare she show her face here. I guess that they figured I had something to do with her plot since we lived together for so long, but that was stupid. Annabell led me to a table in the back corner, filled with people. I sat down reluctantly.

“Hi,” A voice from my left broke the room-wide awkward silence. The whole room quickly but awkwardly picked up their chatter. I turned to see the boy I had sat next to at the meeting.

“You again. What a pleasure.”

He chuckled. “Lisa, this is Ben,” Annabell said. “How do you already know him?”

“Melisandra sat next to me at the assembly,” He said. I turned and looked at him when he said my given name. He was smiling, like he pissed me off on purpose. His smile was almost as wide as Annabell’s and just as bright. His skin was a tan-ish color, lighter than Annabell’s but darker than my own. He had black hair that he obviously had made to look effortlessly messy. I could tell that he was going to annoy me more than anyone else here.

“I distinctly remember telling the whole auditorium that my name was Lisa,” I said. Looking back on this moment I wasn’t being nearly as passive aggressive as I thought I was being, which is probably why it didn’t work.

“Yeah,” He said with another smile, “I remember that too, Mel.” He chuckled as if making me mad was funny. I was thinking of a suitable threat to make him stop calling me Mel when Annabell saved me from probably killing this kid.

“I could literally rip out your-” I started.  

“Hey,” Annabell said, interjecting, “Lisa hasn’t met anyone else, we should probably introduce ourselves.” She looked at her friends eagerly. After several seconds of silence They went around the table saying their names, to be honest I don’t remember most of them. There was one person, sitting in a way that suggested he wanted nothing to do with these people. He wanted to make himself as far away from everyone else as he possibly could. His name was Ian. His hair was black and messy like Ben’s, but he obviously didn’t try to make it that way. He was scrawny and pale, and I couldn’t  have helped but wonder what he was doing here. Everyone else was muscular to some extent. Ian however, was short, and scrawny, and pale. But above all, the most interesting thing about him was the fact that he didn’t introduce himself.

After an awkward lunch I was walking with Annabell and Ben (who for some reason tagged along) back to our room. “So what’s the deal with Ian?”  I asked. Both heads turned to look at me with astonishment.

“How did you-” Annabell started.

“Know his name?” I finished for her. I considered telling them about the fact that I could read thoughts, but I decided to keep my most valuable asset to myself. After a few seconds of silence Ben saved me from having to think of a believable excuse.

“What exactly do you mean by what’s his deal?” Ben asked, this being the first of many times that he would be confused by simple concepts.

I decided to be nice and not make a snarky comment at him. That Annabell girl was already starting to rub off on me. “I mean like, who is he, how does he know you,” I trailed off. Ben told me that Ian’s always just kind of been there (he was Ben’s roommate, who had been there before Ben himself), keeping to himself. Ian had a type of super speed, not so much running but his body’s systems worked faster. It probably was a failed attempt to make him run faster, but Ian’s brain worked so quickly he may even be smarter than me sometimes.

“Anyway, why do you care?” Ben asked me. I sensed a hint of jealousy in his voice, but I ignored him anyway.

“Why wouldn’t she care?” Annabell answered for me. Except she wasn’t really correct. I didn’t care about Ian, he just intrigued me.

“He’s interesting,” I said, settling the stupid argument Ben and Annabell were about to have. “that’s all.”

“Well everyone here is interesting,” Ben said. “We were liberated from horrible concentration camps and all have weird superhuman abilities. What isn’t interesting about us?”

I exhaled in annoyance, because this was the second in a long line of instances of Ben completely missing the point. “That stuff will make you interesting to other people, of course, but I’ve gone through the exact same thing, except worse. The experiences cancel out. So all you people here have to offer is your personalities, and so far you are all extremely predictable and boring in character. Except for Ian.” Ben and Annabell  had mixed expressions on their faces, partly shocked, partly insulted, partly admiration (of my amazing intellectual skills obviously). We continued walking to our rooms in silence, although Ben and Annabell were thinking a whole lot about what I said.

Ben dropped us off at our rooms after lunch with “see ya at training Ann” for Annabell and an aggravating “ Catch ya round, Mel” with a wink for me. Annabell and I ducked into our room for our 15 minutes before training. The whole time was basically spent by Annabell getting me ready. She informed me that I was a colossal mess, and that I definitely needed to wash my hair, but  she said there wasn’t enough time so she just sprayed stuff on my head and pulled some kind of brush through my hair forcefully. It took her a mere ten minutes to get my hair to be semi-smooth and shiny. This was impressive because prior to this my hair had been in a giant knot on top of my head and now my drab brown hair fell in loose waves all the way to my waist. I figured I would put it back up in a knot to keep it out of the way, but Annabell smacked my arm and secured my hair in a braid when I tried. Annabell gave me clothes to wear from my drawer, and I went into our bathroom to put them on. The bathroom had a bunch of high tech stuff that I hadn’t seen since I was Alber’s little lab rat/ prisoner/soldier/daughter. I looked in the giant mirror that dominated the wall above the fancy sink complex. I was truly a mess (minus my newly brushed hair). I was skinny, in a scrawny malnourished way, but worse because I had been genetically coded to be muscular, so my body looked extremely awkward. I had a fine layer of dirt all over my face, making my paleness from sun deprivation and the permanent bags under my eyes look less bad. I had never cared what I looked like, I didn’t know the feeling of self consciousness. But looking back now, I am pretty ashamed of the way I used to walk around like that. I quickly got dressed and washed my face and rushed out to training with my roommate.