Origin (Book 2)

Chapter 11

I squinted my eyes. A light was shining on me.

"Get that light out of my face," I said irritably.

"Are you awake?"

"I don't know. Am I?"

Sage cut the light off. "It's time to get up."

"I know. And don't think I've forgotten," I reminded her.

"I know." Her voice sank a little.

"How did they get in here?" I asked.

"They're called Zero," she said. "The rest, you'll find out in a few minutes. Get some clothes on."

I tried to go into hypermode and continued as if I was, going through the clothes that had appeared in my closet.

"Seriously, hurry up," Sage said.

"I am, sheesh," I said.

"Jay, you're in normal time."

I looked at my watch. It ticked by a second at a time.

"My powers stopped working again," I said sadly. Bye, bye, superspeed. And diamond. And all the others powers I didn't realize or know I had. I was particularly fond of the first one.

"But your fire is fine," she said, noting the faint blue glow under my veins.

"Yeah, it is. Wait-" My head turned sharply in her direction. "How do you know about that?"

"Orientation was supposed to be a test," she said. "We had cameras watching you the whole time."

I took a deep breath in and out, calming my already frayed nerves. "And you didn't think to help?" I slipped on a t-shirt over a compression shirt. "Turn around."

She closed the door and stood outside of it. "Why do you keep trying to find fault in everything I do?" she said through the door.

"I don't have to try." I took off my shorts and put on some jeans.

I moved over and opened the door. "Ready."

She started heading in the direction of the hallway door. "You don't make that look work."

"I do, too," I said.

In a few minutes, we were in the orientation room again.

It wasn't until then that I figured out how may of us died. All that were left were me, Alissa, the laser shooting girl, and the metal guy, Jason, who's name I found out from Sage.

"Everyone else is dead?" I asked her.

"Pretty much. That, or on life support."

Sage looked at me for a moment. "Don't even think that."

"Think what?"

"That this is your fault. It's not. It's ours. There are a lot of things we could've done to keep a situation like that from happening. There is no way this is on you."

"If my powers hadn't conked out again, I'd have done better," I said.

"At least you won't have to worry about that anymore," she said.

"Why?"

"Whatever powers you get now, you keep them. My nanobots told me you were outgrowing the old ones, and you were ready to take on the new ones, so you did. Your body just chooses the wrong time to do it." She shook her head. "I wish I could have asked them why I didn't do that, though. They seem to react to me differently."