For once Ryan had left his house early enough that he managed to catch Derek as he was leaving his house. They gave each other a knuckle bump and trudged along together. Ryan had expected the rain to let up but if anything, it was coming down a little harder than usual, making him regret his choice of a hoody as the only head cover. It was quickly starting to soak through. Derek on the other hand was one to always overprepare. He had, along with a water-resistant grey Pancho with a hoodie, but an umbrella which he graciously offered to Ryan.

  “Thanks, man,” Ryan said gratefully, popping the umbrella open. He recalled the drone and handed it over for Derek to examine. They continued walking in silence for as long as Derek could stand it. Which ended up not being so long as he finally exploded.

  “So, what happened?!” he half yelled, causing Ryan to flinch.

  “Geeze-Louise Derek, caaalm dooown,” Ryan had put the umbrella pole into his armpit so he could make an exaggerated gesture with his hands out flat, slowly dropping down.

  “I swear to God, Ryan,” Derek said warningly, waving the collapsed drone at him threateningly.

  “Okay, okay,” Ryan admitted defeat, taking the drone and putting it into his pocket. Truthfully, he was quite anxious to speak with someone about his experience, it was the driving factor in him getting up on time, for once. “First, I would like to say, this was one of the dumbest ideas anyone has ever had and then put into action,” Derek raised an eyebrow at that. “I was underqualified, underprepared, and underinformed as to what to expect in this situation.” A haunted expression crossed his face as he had a flashback of the hands digging into his legs. With a shudder he continued. “I almost died several times, and I don’t see myself doing anything like that again any time soon.” Ryan had been ramping up the volume of his initial tirade as the wind seemed to be on the verge of downing him out. He gave the environment an indignant examination.

  “Helios,” he said more lightly, knowing the headset would pick up his words despite the rustling of wind in the trees around him. “What is the deal with the weather right now?”

  “Unknown. Current conditions are incongruous with the weather forecast. Will begin investigating the net for known causes.”

  “So, do we need to contact the Ministry?” Derek asked. He was unable to hear Helios response and his worry over what Ryan had said was not deterred by the slight aside about the weather.

  “About that,” Ryan grimaced. “I think they already knew?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Let me just tell you what happened and then we can muse over the ramifications,” Ryan said before launching into a brief summarization of the events of the previous night. They were approaching the school and would soon be converging with other groups of students. Ryan slid off his PerSpectives and stuffed them down into his backpack. The sudden exposure of the part of his face that had been covered was jarringly cold. He blustered his way through the end of his tale before they got into earshot of the other kids.

  “So, does that mean you did it?” Derek asked.

  “I don’t know, the quest won’t complete until the PerSpectives verify the fissure is closed,” Ryan said. A flash of blinding light cracked across the darkened sky, illuminating the students who let out startled murmurs. It was extremely rare to see lightning. The Ministry of Environment had some very severe methods of controlling the weather and keeping the bigger storms out of the districts. Then the boom of thunder crashed into the crowd, causing more than a few screams, and a near stampeding rush to get inside the building. Ryan and Derek were still on the periphery of the group and didn’t bother to rush along with the rest.

  “Five miles,” Derek said.

  “What was that?”

  “An old trick my brother taught me. I counted five seconds between the bolt and the boom,” he said, pointing in the direction of where the lightning had been.

  “Is that accurate?” Ryan asked.

  “You know, I never checked?” Derek said, scrunching his nose up slightly. “We should ask your headset later.”

  “Oh, speaking of which, something else interesting happened last night,” Ryan said.

  “What was that?” a new voice interjected. They both turned to see Jeremy Witkins walking up before putting his arms around both of them. “What happened last night?” Jeremy was almost a head taller than Ryan, and he briefly considered “accidentally” twirling the umbrella around to poke him in the eye—but decided against it.

  “You wouldn’t care Jer,” Derek said dismissively. “You’re not into video games.”

  “Ah, games huh?” Jeremy said skeptically. “I didn’t know the PerSpectives had multi-player games.”

  “Ha! PerSpectives,” Derek scoffed, not missing a beat. “Like we could afford one of those, let alone two.” Jeremy narrowed his eyes but before he could press the issue all three turned towards a clattering sound behind them. A wall of hailstones bouncing was rapidly approaching them, skittering and bouncing like an epic dice roll. Jeremy shoved both of them aside as he ascended the steps to the school. Ryan and Derek shared an uneasy look before quickly following after him.

  After putting their wet stuff and book bags into their lockers, the student body had gathered in the auditorium for an emergency assembly, called by the principal. It was a spacious room, used mainly by the theatrical department of the school, with a large stage in front and rows of seats broken up by two aisles in the middle taking up the remaining space. Ryan and Derek found Lisa had saved them a seat near the back and they shuffled past a few other students get to get to her, Derek taking comedically large steps over backpacks that had been left to block their path while Ryan mumbled various apologies in his wake. Ryan had thought the assembly would be about the inclement weather but was quickly proven wrong.

  “Good morning District 7 High,” standing with hands upon the podium, the principal’s voice was slightly drowned out by the high-pitched ring of feedback before the sound guys were able to adjust the volume. “We have a special day today,” he continued. “Team Alpha from the Ministry of Integrity has chosen our school for early admittance testing this year.” He let the following murmurs subside before he continued. “In light of this our normal class schedule will be suspended for the day. Students will stay in their homeroom until called for testing. To discuss the testing process, I would like to introduce Team Alpha’s very own Tristan Knight,” there was some mildly enthusiastic applause that erupted in the room, disproportionately from the female students, as a burly, square jawed man stepped onto the stage. He was wearing a nice sports coat over what looked to be a black turtleneck, though something about the pattern of the fabric made Ryan think it was a bit more than a standard shirt.

  “What ominous weather we have this morning, huh?” the man’s deep voice boomed across the room. There were some mild chuckles of agreement. “Like Principal Larkin said, my name is Tristan Knight. I’m joined by my team members Sarah Nightshade, and Mai Yumeno. Every year the Ministry chooses a district with the most promising students to be prescreened for admittance to the Astral Academy. These tests will consist of three phases. First, we will do a Soul Scan to determine Projection Potential as well as Astra Affinity. This will be followed by a personality test. We’ll break briefly after that so our team can discuss the results and will call you in again for an interview if determined eligible for admittance. The first half of the day will consist of us getting through the first two tests; we’ll take a few hours after that to work through the results, and then for the second half of the day we’ll do interviews with those who passed the tests. We’ll be calling one class at a time and will begin in thirty minutes. Thank you and see you there.” The man conceded the podium back to the principal and gave a curt wave before exiting stage right.

  The principal, after reminding the students to be on their best behavior, dismissed everyone to their respective classes. Lisa bumped shoulders with Ryan as they walked down the hall.

  “Hey, how’d your Densification practice go last night?”

  “Hey,” Ryan said, “Not bad. I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

  “Were you able to project again?” she asked.

  “Uh huh,” Ryan said, glancing over his shoulder.

  “With the amount of dream diving you’ve been doing lately,” Lisa continued, seeing Ryan wasn’t about to elaborate, “you’re probably going to make their testing equipment explode.”

  “Wh-what was that?” Ryan asked nervously.

  “The Soul Scan,” she explained. “Among other things, it checks for the presence of Soul Tethers. The more time you spend out of your body, and the denser you make your astral form, the more the echo of the tether lingers.”

  “Well,” Derek laughed, also a bit nervously. “That’s not good.” He put a consoling arm around Ryan. “What are you going to do?” Lisa looked between the two of them suspiciously. Ryan gave her as innocent a smile as he could manage.

  Ryan felt a vibration in his pocket coming from his phone. He took a look and saw there was a message notification from the Sifting App. “Just a sec,” he told his friends. Lisa shook her head at them and went into the classroom.

  “I think she’s mad at you,” Derek said, watching her go.

  “I think she’s mad at us, dude,” Ryan corrected, looking down at his phone and opening the app.

  Helios: Weather conditions may be related to a communication blackout with the Storm Barrier East J29.

  Aitherios: We’re texting now?

  Helios: This is the most efficient means of communication when PerSpectives are not being worn.

  Aitherios: What happened to the Storm Barrier?

  Helios: Unknown. Information is sparse at this time. Evidence seems to indicate that a massive storm system has breached the barrier, resulting in the escalating weather conditions in District 7.

  Aitherios: Are we in danger?

  Helios: Not enough information to determine threat level. Weather conditions are unlikely to get worse than they currently are.

  Aitherios: Hm. Ok. Keep me posted on any further developments.

  Helios: Acknowledged.

  Ryan put his device back in his pocket, tilting his head with a thoughtful expression on his face. Part of the system the Ministry of Meteorology had developed to combat the increasingly frequent super storm systems battering the east coast from the Atlantic was a massive barrier that surrounded Inner City and its outlying districts. Ryan had never heard of it being breached before, but there was a first time for everything. The timing felt, as the man Tristan had put it, a bit ominous.

  “Everything OK?” Derek asked. Ryan glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention before he answered.

  “One of the Storm Walls has gone radio silent,” he said.

  “And we’re in the middle of a freak storm,” Derek nodded. “What a coincidence. Speaking of coincidences, I thought you might be worried about the testing.”

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “I was trying not to be,” Ryan grumbled.

  “You don’t think they suspect a student was involved in the incident last night?”

  “I do, as a matter of fact,” Ryan said.

  “Any chance they would be able to figure out who with their testing equipment?”

  “How should I know, Derek?” Ryan snapped, then gave him an apologetic grimace. “Sorry.”

  “Dude, if I were you, I would not be as chill.” They made their way into the classroom, finding their seats. Lisa was pointedly looking at her phone, and not the two of them.

  “What about you?” Ryan asked Derek, pretending non-verbal Lisa was sending them.

  “What about me?”

  “Aren’t you a little excited about the chance for early admission?”

  “Oh, that, I’m not in a rush. Whatever happens, happens.” Ryan rolled his eyes at Derek’s nonchalant attitude. He knew it was a front.

  “How do you feel about it, Lisa?” he said, turning her way.

  “I can’t go to the Astral Academy either way,” she said, not taking her eyes off her phone.

  “Why not? I thought that was your goal?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My family has me signed up for a private school.”

  “Really?” Ryan and Derek said together.

  “Yes, really,” Lisa spat with a tone designed to let them know she was upset, and they were the reason. “At least this way I won’t be around to get between you two.”

  “Look, Lisa, we’re not trying to exclude you from anything,” Derek said, attempting to smooth things over. “It's just…”

  “…we can’t really talk about it at school,” Ryan finished for him. “Especially not today.”

  “Yeah,” Derek agreed. “Just give us the rest of the day and we'll tell you everything after school.”

  Lisa gave them both a long, unreadable look, and then slowly nodded.

  “Fine,” she said. “Whatever.”

  “Call the next class,” Mae told the assistant the principal had assigned to them. They had set up their testing equipment inside the teacher’s lounge, moving the couches up against the wall to make space for the full body scanner as well as a long desk for them to sit at while they conducted their interviews. She leaned over to take a look at Sarah’s tablet. Sarah shook her head.

  “That whole class was a bust,” she said. “You really think that mystery traveler was a student?”

  “I do,” Mae said, frowning at the results on the screen. “Not a single student had over 30% potentiality?”

  “One kid was as low as twelve,” Sarah said. “He must have swallowed too much fluoride at the dentist.”

  “You know how I feel about pseudo-scientific conspiracies, Sarah. Even if it's a joke.”

  “Sorry Mae,” Sarah said sheepishly.

  “I got the Q-Stabilizers in place and tied into the power tap,” Tristan said as he walked into the room. Mae and Sarah both turned to him, Mae opening her mouth to ask a follow-up question, but Tristan beat her to it. “I went ahead and did another scan before activating them, but there’s no sign of any anomalous activity. Seems your mystery traveler did a decent job stabilizing the Locus.”

  “Beginner’s luck,” Sarah muttered. She had yet to perform a Locus Stabilization since joining the team and had a bit of a complex about it. It wasn’t that she was incapable, she would have to be to qualify to join the premier team of the Ministry Integrity’s Astral Activity Response Unit. Still, the fact that some amateur had pulled it off, in front of the two remaining legends within the organization no less, before she had, rankled her.

  “It takes more than luck to stabilize a Locus, especially in the abnormal circumstances we were in,” Mae said, dismissing Sarah’s emotional response. “I am very interested in learning where this person is learning their techniques. It could go very wrong for a lot of people if they get it into their head that they actually know what they’re doing.”

  “Well,” Tristan yawned, still tired from the night’s adventure. “Hopefully we find out.”

  “Pardon me,” came the timid voice of their assistant. “The next class is ready.”

  Ryan sat nervously next to Derek and Lisa in the hallway outside the teachers’ lounge, along with the rest of their class. A few students had already been called in. The scan and interview seemed to take about fifteen minutes per student, though some were longer and, in one case, much, much, shorter. Ryan wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t beyond Derek to speculate.

  “I wonder if the shorter tests are due to a lack of charisma,” he whispered. The acoustics in the hallway meant everyone could hear him anyway.

  “Or they’re utterly devoid of any astral projection potential,” Lisa suggested, getting into the game.

  “What if they don’t even bother to interview the ones that don’t register on the Potentiometer,” Derek said.

  “Potentiometer?” Ryan asked.

  “He doesn’t like saying the word ‘Soul’” Lisa rolled her eyes. “If Mr. Knight isn’t afraid to say it, I don’t know why you are.”

  “It’s not scientific,” Derek said. “And, what is this ‘Mr. Knight’ business?”

  “He’s a hero of the Crisis, Derek. He deserves a little respect.”

  “Oh, is that what we’re calling it now,” Derek jeered. “Respect.”

  “I will kick you’re a—”

  “Lisa Iona,” the secretary’s voice cut her fury short, and she stood. The student who had come before her was leaving the office with a somewhat disappointed air about her.

  “Time me,” she said, and turned on her heel towards the testing area.

  “You two should get a room already,” Ryan said as Derek tapped a few times on his watch.

  “That’s all you bud,” Derek said. “Though I think she might have eyes for that Tristan guy.”

  “He’s like, sixty years old now?” Ryan said incredulously.

  “Late forties, I think,” Derek speculated. “Early fifties maybe. He was in his thirties when the Crisis happened.”

  “I’m not above doing a little math,” Ryan said, “but I’m pretty sure my point still stands.”

  “But, man, whatever they went through in the Crisis,” Derek said. “It’s like they stopped aging.” The lights flickered slightly. They didn’t go out entirely, but it was enough that people noticed. Power outages were supposedly a thing of the past, and with the unheard-of storm pelting the school, the tension in the hallway was rising steadily. The teacher tried to calm them down, but the students could tell her heart wasn’t really in it. Ryan pulled his device out, the Sifting app already open, and tapped out a message.

  Aitherios: Did we just have a power disruption?

  Helios: Affirmative.

  Aitherios: …

  Helios: The power fluctuated briefly.

  Aitherios: Why?

  Helios: Unknown. Would you like me to investigate?

  Aitherios: Please do.

  Ryan slid the device back into his pocket, annoyed by the reticence of his new AI pal, and absently slid his hand into his other pocket containing the orb. There was a comfort he found in the way it reacted to his touch, like a faint pulsating power tugged at him. It reminded him of the feeling he had examining the amber crystals the night before. He wondered if they were related to the firmament somehow. He wondered about what Lisa had said, regarding the echo of his astral tether. Was there a way to disperse that echo? What if he tried something like reverse densification? He closed his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Derek asked. Ryan jerked slightly, startled from his reverie.

  “My God, Derek,” he complained. “Don’t do that!”

  “What?”

  “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Sorry, man,” Derek apologized. “It’s just like we were chewing the fat one moment and the next you kinda drifted away. What do you think that was just now, anyway? A power surge?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I asked Helios—”

  “Who?” Derek said before remembering. “Oh yeah, your dorky name for your system AI. What ever happened with our jailbreak scheme?”

  “That was actually the other thing I wanted to talk to you about this morning,” Ryan said, as easily distracted by tangents as his friend Derek.

  “Derek Peterson,” the secretary cut in. Derek quickly tapped his watch as he stood.

  “Fifteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds,” he said as he passed by Lisa. She narrowed her eyes at him and started tapping on her own watch.

  “How did it go?” Ryan asked once Lisa had stopped fiddling with her watch.

  “Actually, pretty well,” she said, before adding with a lot less confidence “I think.”

  “What was it like?” he asked.

  “Have you ever done a CAT scan before?” she asked, but Ryan shook his head.

  “But I have seen it done on TV,” he said. “When they have to sit on a table and get pulled into a giant magnet?”

  “That’s an MRI Ryan,” she scolded. “You really need to fit some Medical dramas into those old shows you like to watch.” Ryan blushed. “A CT or CAT scan is more like a giant round hula hoop that goes around your body. Anyway, it’s kind of like that, but you’re standing the whole time. I think they assume most kids won’t know how to read the results, so they don’t try to hide them on the monitor. My affinity is ice! Can you believe that?”

  “Wow,” Ryan said. He had only recently been introduced to the concept of Astral Projection and had no idea what affinities even were, but from what he’d seen the previous night, and what Lisa had just said, he was starting to put the pieces together. That probably meant that the Ember Man he’d seen was Tristan Knight in his astral body. Now that he made the connection, he thought it should have been obvious. They had the exact same body type, from the burly physic to the chiseled jaw. The glowing cracks of heat in his skin were just so distracting at the time.

  “So does that mean you will have ice powers in the astral?” Ryan asked.

  “Ice affinities typically specialize in support roles, generating shields, debilitating enemies. There aren’t many recorded travelers with that affinity so there could be a lot more potential. Speaking of potential, I scored at 55%. They said it was the highest score they’d seen all day!”

  “I’m so happy for you Lisa,” Ryan said. “I know how much this means to you. And how much you practice.”

  “Thanks Ry,” she said. “I’m not as confident with my performance during the Personality Test though,” she added. “I wasn’t sure if I was answering honestly or just saying what I thought they wanted to hear.” That sounded almost the opposite of how Ryan planned to handle that part of the test.

  “But you don’t care about the Astral Academy anyway,” Ryan tried to cheer her up. “It’s nice to know you have the potential to be something great and unique.”

  “I know,” she said. “I should know that. But seeing those results. Ugh, I just wanted to be able to completely wipe that smug look of Derek’s face for once!” They both started laughing until the teacher came over to see why they were being so disruptive. After that they sat in silence for a bit.

  “Well, there is something I was wondering about,” Ryan whispered after a few minutes. “It was an idea I had to avoid standing out too much in those tests. Is it possible to do the opposite of densification? You know, to disperse whatever echo of my astral tether might remain?” There was a fleeting look on Lisa’s face before she answered, quick enough that Ryan wasn’t even sure if he’d seen it or not. His mind registered it as a sour expression, but it was so brief that he didn’t have time to dwell on it and dismissed the thought out of hand.

  “I suppose you could imagine the tether dispersing,” Lisa said thoughtfully. “If you do it right, the echo should scatter with the mental image. Maybe. I really don’t know Ryan, it’s kind of the opposite of what I’ve been training at. Give it a try,” she suggested.

  Ryan nodded, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He almost didn’t need to put any effort inter visualizing the tether. It was right there, bright and luminescent in his mind. He began to contemplate the image that would best cause it to disappear when—

  “Ryan Donnovan,” the secretary called. He popped his eyes open, seeing Derek saunter out of the teacher’s lounge.

  “Oh, come on,” Ryan complained. “What order are they even calling us in?”

  “Fourteen fifty-seven!” Lisa called triumphantly as Ryan stood and Derek sat.

  “See you on the other side,” he said, tapping Derek’s knuckles and nodding to Lisa. Time to pay the piper, he thought.