room, a curious look on his face. I dropped down into an armchair near the table and watched
as Billy moved his piece.
“You look annoyed,” he remarked as Jane considered the board. “What happened?”
“Sandra tried to make me feel something,” I muttered, glaring at the board. “I’m sick of
being a guinea pig.” “That’s what you signed up for,” Billy commented as Jane told Billy her next move. He
moved the piece then continued, “Besides, we’re the only people she can practice on at the
moment.”
I scowled and crossed my arms over my chest. Her high-handed use of her powers was
really angering me and I didn’t quite know why. I didn’t like how she concentrated on negative
emotions, trying to spark fights, but that wasn’t quite enough for the annoyance and anger I was
feeling. I took a deep breath and tried to let the anger go.
“You know, I may not be as immune as she thought,” I murmured, shaking my head. The
anger was slowly draining away now that I was examining exactly why I was angry. Billy moved
his knight, taking one of Jane’s pawns, before turning back to study me.
“You seem much calmer,” Billy affirmed. I felt a light tickling in my mind again but didn’t
try to brush it off this time. “You are not immune to what she can do but it takes longer to work
with you. Though Sandra may leave you alone, thinking she can’t do anything with your
emotions.”
“I hope so,” I muttered, getting up and taking a seat across from Billy. Jane told us her
next move and I moved her rook up to take Billy’s knight. “I don’t like thinking that I’m not in
control of my emotions.”
Billy shrugged as he studied the board. He had lost a lot of pieces compared to Jane
and I could see that he was going to lose if he didn’t pull something amazing out of his head. He
moved his queen up, studying the board one last time before taking his finger off the piece.
There was silence fromJane as she studied the board. Billy’s move was pure genius and there
were only a couple moves Jane could make next.
“Bishop to your other knight,” Jane said and I moved the bishop to take Billy’s knight. I
placed the piece off to the side and studied theboard along with Billy. Something didn’t seem
quite right with the previous play. It looked like Billy had sacrificed his knight for no reason.
Then, he moved his rook into place and I saw his strategy. “Checkmate,” Billy announced, grinning up at the ceiling. “So one for you and one for
me, right Jane?”
There were several seconds of silence as Jane studied the board and tried to find a way
to refute Billy’s statement. Finally, she made a sound very much like a sigh and said, “Yes, very
good, Billy.”
Billy chuckled and started putting the pieces away. I helped and the board was set to
rights and put away quickly. As Billy stood to put the game back in the shelves, Sandra,
Michael, and Amy stormed into the room. They were arguing and screaming at the top of their
lungs.
“You need to stop messing with me!” Amy yelled, making an aborted move as if she was
going to hit Sandra. “Stop making us so angry!”
“You can’t keep doing this, Sandra!” Michael screamed, his face red with anger. “We are
people, not playthingsfor your pleasure.”
“I’m practicing,” Sandra argued, raising her hands in defense. “I can’t help it if anger is
easy to create. I need to practice with my powers just as much as you both do! Michael, weren’t
you the one who was floating around the kitchennot too long ago?”
“Wait, Michael can fly? How does that work?” I asked, breaking into their argument.
“I can manipulate the gravity around me so that I can hover in the air,” Michael replied
sulkily, shooting glares at Sandra. “It’s not so much flying as working against the pull of the
Earth’s gravity.”
“That’s impressive,” Billy complimented him, his voice full of surprise. Michael glanced at
him, shock on his face, though the sentence seemed to calm him a bit. He glared one more time
at Sandra then turned and stalked away.
continued, his voice soft. “You can practice your power just as easily with more positive
emotions and you know it.” Sandra grumbled but didn’t disagree, glaring at Billy. Without Sandra concentrating on
her, Amy visibly calmed down. She came over to my chair and wrapped an arm over my
shoulders. Sandra glanced around the room and then stalked off. The sound of a door
slamming indicated that she’d holed herself up in her room.
“That went well,” Jane commented dryly, breaking the tension that had taken over the
room. “Amy, why don’t you tell me how you’ve been doing with your power?”
Amy answered Jane, carrying a conversation with the AI while Billy and I sat, lost in our
thoughts. I was starting to really worry about Sandra. She’d seemed like a driven woman but
one tempered with kindness and a desire to help people. Now that she had this power over
other’s emotions, Sandra seemed to be turning a lot darker. Seemingly delighting in causing
friction, Sandra was playing around with us as if we didn’t matter.
The rest of the day passed slowly as we all stayed separate. Billy coaxed Amy into
playing Mancala for a while until dinner, which Dr. Carnesby cooked for us. He’d heard the
arguments and kindly decided to make dinner so none of us had to worry about it. Silence
reigned at the table as we ate, Michael and Amy still angry at Sandra. That night, all of us went
to bed, tired and annoyed. I only hoped the next few days, as we all got used to our powers,
would be calmer.
-----------------------------------------------------
Over the next four days, we learned and practiced and worked with each other. The drug
seemed to have reduced our need for sleep, as most of us were up nearly all night. We all
practiced our abilities, Michael playing pranks by floating above us and tapping a shoulder or
head. He’d also taken to making little origami space shuttles with some printer paper. Working
with his power, Michael made them float above our heads and down the hallway. I turned into all
sorts of animals, staying away from other people for the moment. It unnerved Amy every time I
turned into someone else. The first night, Billy, Michael and I were sitting in the lounge and swapping stories about
different professors we’d had. We’d never had the same professor for a class, so it was actually
really funny to hear the stories.
“And I kid you not, she had no idea she’d made a Doctor Who reference by repeatedly
saying “physics” in the beginning of class,” Michael said, doubled over in his chair laughing.
“She was just looking for the presentation for that day that she’d named physics.”
“She had no idea?” Billy asked, wheezing through his laughter. “What did the class do?”
“About half of us were laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe,” Michael explained, wiping
tears from his eyes. “She and the other half were looking at us like we were insane. Then
someone started singing the theme song and everyone who got it joined in.”
I was laughing along with them, Billy and Michael’s laughter infectious even though I
&nb
sp; didn’t watch Doctor Who. I didn’t have many funny stories of my own so spent most of the night
listening to Billy and Michael.
“When the professor opened up the drawer in his desk, he found a heart sitting there,”
Billy explained, moving on to a story about one of the meaner premed professors. “One of the
students, during an autopsy, took the heart out and hid it there with a note that said “Have a
heart, spare us a test today”. Of course, that didn’t help and we got a horrible test but watching
him scream and jump up out of his chair was worth it.”
The laughter drew Amy and she sat on the arm of my chair, my arm wrapped around her
waist. She seemed preoccupied, barely acknowledging any of us. Every once in a while, during
the stories, she would sigh as if she was bored.
“Hey, Tink, what’s up?” I whispered while Michael told another story. She looked at me
blinking, like she had no idea I was there.
“Just got some things on my mind,” Amy replied vaguely, shaking her head. “Nothing to
worry about.” I tried to talk to her a bit more, get Amy to open up about what was bothering her, but
she shrugged me off and headed back to her room. I could only assume it was the abilities we’d
allgotten getting to her and let her go. Though, if I’d known exactly what was going on, I would
have fought harder to get through to her.
Sandra didn’t join us that night, nor did she join us over the next few nights. That was the
only time Michael stayed with Billy and I, just spending time as college students and having a
few laughs. The next three nights were mostly spent playing games with Billy and Jane or
watching a movie. Billy and I had similar taste in movies so we passed the hours quoting
dialogue and making fun of mistakes. I think not seeing Michael very much contributed to the
fact that I missed what was going on with him. We all missed how much he was changing. It
was the same with Amy. I was trying to give her space to come to terms with her powers never
realizing that Sandra was at work on both of them.
Amy would come in and sit with me for a time before leaving. She was getting more and
more distant, shooting glares at Billy when she thought he couldn’t see. Something was
obviously wrong with her, but all my efforts to get her to open up failed. Finally, Amy stopped
coming into the lounge and started ignoring everyone but Sandra.
I’d taken to avoiding Sandra as much as I could since seeing her practice her empathy
on Michael and Amy. Sandra was still trying to experiment on me and Billy but we ignored her. I
don’t know if she was hoping constant pressure would break the natural block Billy had against
her or what.
I continued to practice shapeshifting and the tension got to the point where I was the
only one who could break it, usually with a practical joke. My favorite was when Sandra had
used her powers to make Amy so sad she could barely move. I turned into an armchair and Billy
coaxed Amy out of her room to sit in the armchair. She jumped when I moved and wrapped my
arms around her but laughed when she realized it was me. That was one of the last times I
heard her laugh. Slowly, Sandra seemed to calm down and she and Michael started spending a lot of
time together. He had a glazed look in his eyes whenever they were together, as if he was only
barely there. Sandra was walking around with a smug and satisfied look on her face, which
started to worry me. But nothing seemed overtly wrong, so I decided there wasn’t really much I
could do.
At the beginning of our third week in the trial, Dr. Carnesby decided to try holding a sort
of group therapy session for all of us. After breakfast, we all gathered in the lounge in the
squashy armchairs, staring suspiciously at the doctor. He sat primly in another armchair, a
notebook open across his knees.
“Well, I know this last week has been difficult for all of you,” Dr. Carnesby began,
meeting each of our eyes. I’d figured out by this time that this was his favorite method of
drawing each person into the conversation. “So I wanted to take this opportunity to sit down with
all of you and discuss your new powers and how this past week has gone.”
“Why? We all know what we can do,” Sandra remarked disinterestedly, studying her
nails. “What does it matter if we talk about it or not?”
“I’ve noticed that most of the strife and disruption has been centered around you,
Sandra,” Dr. Carnesby said sternly. “This would be the opportune time for you to apologize and
realize that you are causing a lot of harm.”
“All I’m doing is practicing my power,” Sandra argued, her voice still distant. Michael was
staring at her, his eyes glazed over. I noticed he was panting lightly and a flush was rising over
his face. “Besides, isn’t that what you wanted us all to do?”
“I wanted you to practice your power safely and with regard to others,” Dr. Carnesby
replied, tapping his pen on his notebook. “I believe I made that clear to you early last week.”
“You did,” Sandra sighed dramatically. “But I don’t like the positive emotions. They’re too
ephemeral and soft. The negative ones are hard and sharp and dangerous. It’s a thrill to play with them, as if, with the wrong move, I’d slice my fingers off. Who wouldn’t want to play around
with that kind of power?”
“Your ability isn’t a toy,” Dr. Carnesby countered. “You have a chance to be more than
everyone else around you, to contribute more to our society. And you’re using it to hurt the
people around you.”
“I’m not hurting them,” Sandra scoffed, waving a hand. “I’m just letting them experience
emotions they normally repress. What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re doing it against our will,” Amy snapped, glaring at Sandra from her armchair.
“You never asked if you could make me feel anger or resentment all the time. I don’t like feeling
those things andI don’t like not being in control of what I feel. You have no right to just play
around with me.”
“Michael doesn’t seem to mind, do you?” Sandra smirked, turning to the guy. “So far,
you’ve found it interesting what I can do, right?”
“I have, very interesting,” Michael agreed, nodding slavishly at Sandra. “It’s actually been
fun.”
“What? You told me you hated it too,” Amy said, confusion threading through her voice.
“Last week you kept hiding with me to try and stay away from her.”
“I changed my mind,” Michael replied absently, never taking his eyes off Sandra. The
flush had risen over his entire face and he kept licking his lips. He didn’t quite look sick but
something wasn’t quite right with him.
“And you, George?” Dr. Carnesby said, turning to me. “How have you been dealing with
your powers?”
“I’ve just been practicing turning into things,” I shrugged, playing down my ability. “I’ve
learned I can turn into inanimate objects, though. I changed into an armchair last week. Size
doesn’t seem to matter when I shapeshift.” “That’s very interesting,” Dr. Carnesby said, writing furiously in his notebook. “Have you
been working with anyone else while practicing your powers?”
“I have, yeah,” I admitted, shrugging again. “Billy’s been practicing his ability with me
&n
bsp; whenever I change. He’s the only one who can keep a handle on my thoughts while I’m in
another shape.”
“That’s excellent!” Dr. Carnesby said, beaming at both of us. “It’s wonderful to hear that
you two are working so well together.”
“Yeah, just peachy,” Amy muttered sarcastically. I don’t know if she meant to be heard or
not, but I could hear her very clearly.
“Something wrong?” I asked lightly, glancing over at her. A sullen anger suffused her
face and all of a sudden, I didn’t recognize her.
“Yes, something’s wrong,” Amy spat, her anger rising. “You’ve been spending all your
time with Billy and talking to Jane and none with me. No time at all helping me try to master my
abilities.”
“Amy, every time I try to help, you shrug me off,” I argued, sitting forward in my chair for
emphasis. This was strange and extremely sudden for Amy. “You’re the one pulling away, not
me. I’ve been trying to give you some space to deal with your abilities.”
“I’m not pulling away, you idiot!” Amy screamed suddenly. Her face was bright red with
her anger and her eyes shone with a malicious rage. “You’re leaving me all alone while you
work on yourself. Well, that’s it. I’m done. I’m breaking up with you.”
Before I could respond, Amy shot up off her chair and stalked down the hallway to her
room. She slammed the door hard, enough to rattle the frame. I sat there, my mouth dropping
open in stunned surprise. Sure, we’d had fights before but nothing like this. Nothing that went
from basically everything’s fine to all hell’s broken loose in about two seconds. I looked around
the room, noting that everyone but Michael was looking at me. Billy had a stunned look on his face just like I did. He looked like he hadn’t seen that
coming, which surprised me even more. Since he’d gotten control over his powers, Billy had
tended to keep a mental eye on everyone, making sure they were all right. Dr. Carnesby was
looking at me with a mix of sympathy and confusion. Sandra was the only one who looked
happy about what had just happened. She had a small satisfied smirk on her face, as if she was
a cat who’d just stolen a whole bowl of cream. Michael still watched Sandra’s every move, a
look of naked hunger now on his face.