Pulse

Description

R is a new student at NorthRook academy, a futuristic space station orbiting the earth.

Chapter 1

"You have arrived at NorthRook Academy. The doors will be opening momentarily. We hope you enjoyed traveling on Free Skys. Enjoy your stay." There was a slight screech of audio feedback when the message ended, but I didn't care.

The second I heard the hydraulics of door opening, I eagerly unstrapped myself from the seat where I sat, then pulled off my oxygen mask. Breathing shallowly, I dumped the mask in the bin near the entrance, then unhooked my backpack from where it hung on the wall. By the time I was done with this, the doors were all the way open.

I ran through the airlock, and into the entrance room of NorthRook academy. The room was blue and bland with a simple gray door at the opposite end of the room of where the airlock was located. The exterior of NorthRook academy was a massive, elongated, pill-shaped hunk of metal, and the interior was a series of intricately assembled rooms arranged like a 3D puzzle.

After taking a deep breath of the clean, recycled air, I slid my backpack down my arm, and dropped it onto the floor. I unzipped one of the side pockets, and pulled out a small, beetle-shaped device which fit nicely in the palm of my hand. I rezipped the pocket, then pulled the backpack back up and onto my right shoulder. As I walked over to the door, I could feel the left sleeve of my oversized jacket slipping down my arm.

I looked around as more and more passengers came in through the airlock. They were waiting for the guide to show up, but I was tired and didn't plan on waiting. I slapped the large, square, dark blue button next to the door. The door slid left into the wall, and I stepped through the new opening into a hallway colored countless shades of green.

As I walked down the hallway, the door closed by itself. As I walked, the iBug I held heated up as I mentally turned it on. Before a minute had passed, a small inverted pentagon of lights preached out from a small purple dot at the end of an otherwise silvery-gray device. I gestured at the flat image, opening the map of the space station that I'd downloaded.

Once I'd finished, there was a 3D model of the academy floating above my iBug. Marking where I was, there was a small red dot from which a long thin line trailed away from, showing the path to my room. After roughly ten minutes of turning into wrong hallways and repetitively having to watch the map readjust itself, to make up for my wrong turns, I adjusted the settings.

The 3D model disappeared, and in its place was a sheet of transparent light. I held up the bug so that I could look through the augmented reality it generated. Through the filter of the iBug, there was a red arrow pointing towards the direction of where I needed to go.

It took nearly a half hour of tiredly walking though green hallways for me to find the correct room complex. This was a long, green, dimly lit hallway lined with a series of purple doors. I slipped the iBug into my back pocket as I walked down the hallway looking for the correct room.

I stopped in front of room hat849, a code that I'd memorized the second I heard it. I pressed my hand into the scanner pad right next to the door, and the door split down the middle, sliding into the walls at either side.

I stepped though the new opening, and it closed almost immediately after was in the room. There were no activated light sources in the room, so I pulled out the small, still warm iBug out of my pocket. I turned it on, and set it to become a small flashlight.

I looked around the small room. It seemed to be split in two. Each side contained only a small bed, however while the one on the left was completely bare, the one on the right contained a large blanket-covered lump which I assumed was my roommate.

I walked over to sit on the empty bed, and dropped my backpack onto the floor next to my feet. I unzipped the largest pocket, turned off the iBug, then dropped it into the bag. I swung my legs back up on the bare mattress, and lay there for a few minutes before sitting up to zip up my jacket. Unlike the hallways, this room was cold. I pulled my arms into the core of the jacket, then slowly drifted off to sleep in the cold, dark room.

Chapter 2

"Who are you?"

I felt a slap to the side of my face. I opened my eyes to the sight of an angry face framed with long blonde hair above my head. It moved backwards to let me sit up. I looked at the person, quickly waking up, and soon came to the conclusion that this was my roommate.

"I said 'who are you?'" she repeated as I searched for her name. It was Luna.

"I'm R," I said, looking up at her dark brown eyes. "I'm your new roommate, I'm sure they'd've told you, don't you remember?"

She squinted at me, then took a step back. As she stood there in what looked to be deep thought, I looked at what she was wearing. It was a grey jumpsuit which covered her entire body, except the hood which would cover her head was down. It was identical to the one I'd been issued - but hers had an orange band around the upper right arm.

After a minute, she said, "Yeah. I remember. I thought they were joking though. Unfortunately, it appears they weren't." She sighed. "You should probably get dressed. I'm not going to help you get around, so you'll have to figure it out yourself."

The harsh, yellow light of the single bulb in the ceiling allowed me to see her press a small, square button on the wall next to the door and leave the small pink-walled room.

I reached down to grab my backpack and pull it up onto the thin mattress I sat on. I pulled out the grey jumpsuit that'd been stuffed in the largest pocket, and my iBug tumbled onto the floor as I did so. I stood up, and quickly undressed. Once my casual clothes were in the bag, I slipped into the jumpsuit.

It was a bit big, so I removed the belt from my short, pink skirt and

Chapter 3

The knife clattered to the floor, and I leaned forward, eyes scrunched closed, head in my hands.

I think I might've heard Grace say "are you ok?" but there were too many other voices. I inched my finger along the surface of the headphones. After a moment, I felt the right button, and pressed it.

My mind was filled with a long, endless tone. It was so loud, I thought for a second that Grace might've been able to hear it too. I held onto the button for what felt like an eternity, and when then voices faded back into the background I sighed in relief and let go.

I looked up to find Grace standing over me, worried. "Are you ok? What was that?"

"Sometimes, even with something to focus on, I can't control my telepathy, and I get flooded with too many voices and conversations and minds, and I can't really comprehend it all, so I need something more specific than a song to focus on. Underneath the tone, there's some kind of dampener thingy that temporary blocks my telepathy." I explained.

"Dampener... thingy?" She gave me a look.

I threw my hands up in the air. "Hey! I didn't invent it. I don't know how it works."

She smiled. "Why not just have the tone all the time?"

I held up my hand, and started counting off my finders. "One, that's boring, and gets really annoying very fast. Two, playing the tone with the dampener for too long can be dangerous. Three, Its reeeeeally boring."

She giggled at my overserious expression. "So, what are you listening to, then?"

I thought for a minute, concentrating, and transferred my audio perception of current the music through the headphones to her mind. Here lips parted an adorable gasp.

"How do you not want to sing along all the time?" She asked.

I shrugged.

"What do the lyrics mean?" she seemed confused.

"What do you mean?" I asked. It was a just a song. I wasn't sure it was supposed to have a hidden meaning.

"It says 'no more counting dollars' several times. Whats a dollar?" She looked so confused, and it was so cute, I had to laugh. "What's so funny?"

When I finished laughing, I said, "History isn't your strong suit, is it?"

She looked a bit annoyed, to which I replied, "don't worry, it's fine. A long time ago, instead of credits, there was this stuff called 'paper money'. It was made of paper, and paper-like products. They were used to pay for stuff. One kind of paper money was called 'dollars'."

"Ah." She said simply, then, "Either way, it's catchy." She grabbed my hands, and pulled me up to stand. She pushed me to dance a little, laughing as I reluctantly agreed.

When the song ended, I closed off my mind from her. "So." I thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to continue the conversation. "What classes are you taking?"

"What?"

"Classes. This is a school." I laughed at her expression.

"Right. Summer is so long I almost forgot." She said, embarrassed.

"Dude, you've been here two months." I pointed out.

"That's a long time." She protested.

"Yeah, if you're a mayfly." I laughed.

"What?" She seemed confused at that as well.

"Nevermind. What classes are you taking?" I prompted.

"Well, all the required, of course." She started.

"I meant what classes are you taking besides the obvious?" I poked her.

"I was getting to those." She swatted away my hand. "I'm taking a bunch of electronics classes, and Electric Weaponry, and Electric Control."

"Lots of electricity." I noted.

"Well," she looked at her hands. "It's not like I can help it."

"True." I smiled.

"So," she poked me, "What classes are you taking?"

"Ugh." I groaned. "I have so many I don't even remember the names of half of them." I pulled out my phone, opened Northrook Academy, and handed it to Grace.

"Woah." She said looking through my schedule. "You'd need to be a Jumper to take this many classes." She looked up at me, "I thought you were a Telepath?"

"Technically." I said with a forced grin.

"Technically?" She repeated. "Explain."

"I'm a Copycat." I admitted.

"A Copycat?" she repeated again.

"Yeah. I touch someone with an ability, and-"

"Yeah, I know, you copy that ability until you touch someone else, but you have the telepathy even after touching me." She looked confused.

"Umm." I looked down, slightly embarrassed. "I actually keep the ability... permanently."

I looked up at her with a forced smile, wondering what she'd say.

"Dude." She looked at me like I was crazy, "that's fucking awesome."

"Huh?" Most people's reaction was fear, or annoyance.

"I have one question, though." She said.

"Shoot." I said, confused.

"What happens if you touch two people with the same ability?" she asked.

I felt relived that she was simply curious about me, and not scared. If she'd gotten mad about it, honestly I would've been a bit disappointed. I was liking Grace so far. "If I touch someone, I get an exact copy of their ability and power. If I were to touch a very powerful Telepath, then a very weak Telepath, I would be slightly more powerful than the first, and a lot more powerful than the second."

"Did that happen?" she asked, pointing to my headphones.

"Yeah." I nodded. "There are a looooot of telepaths in the world."

"I thought they were pretty rare?"

"No. A lot of people get nervous about getting their minds read, and are convinced that all Telepaths use mind control and are trying to take over, so they tend to hide." I explained.

"Makes sense." Grace considered this, "Are you reading my mind?"

I shrugged, "A little. Not really by choice, though. I don't like reading people's minds."

"What about teacher's minds?" She asked, "You could use it to get the right answers."

"I don't need telepathy to get the right answers," I said modestly.

"Ooh. Someone's being arrogant." Grace teased.

"No, I'm not." I complained, "I'm just smart, how do you think I got into this place?"

"Um, you're abilities, duh." She laughed.

I glared at her, and she shut up.

"Sorry. Not funny." She looked sad.

"Look, its fine." I gave her a quick hug.

"Cool." She perked up immediately. "Can you show me some of your abilities?"

"Sure." I pulled off my sweater, and tossed it onto a chair. My tail, which had been hidden under it, was now hanging down behind me. "What would you like to see?"

"Can you summon fire?" She asked.

"No, but I can summon ice." I smirked. Grace watched eagerly as I stared at the space in front of her, where a glowing blue orb soon appeared. The blob elongated, and soon took on a rod-like shape. Within seconds of it appearing, it's turned into an ice rose.

When I was finished, Grace plucked it out of the air, and stared at it in awe. "It's so... detailed," she breathed.

"You like?" I sat down on the bed behind me.

"Yeah, it's amazing. Also cold." She giggled.

"Duh. It's made of ice." I pointed out.

"Won't it melt?" She asked.

"Yeah, but it'll take a while." I said.

"Cool." She smiled at me.

"So," I retrieved my phone from her, "barely a week 'till classes start."

"True."

"Any plans?" I asked.

"Not really." She said after trying to think of something, and giving up, "mostly, I was just planning on sleeping, and messing around on the internet."

"Good plan. Now, if you don't mind, it is nearly 10pm, and I am completely exhausted." As I started walking towards the closet, I concentrated, and moved at superspeed. Within seconds, I'd changed into an oversized pair of fuzzy black pajamas covered with a yellow and blue pattern of stars.

"Who gets tired at 10?" Grace scoffed.

"Hey!" I protested. "I was on a HoverBus for almost 4 hours, then I spent most of forever trying to find my dorm room in this colony calling itself a campus. Then I had to spend any time at all with Yuna, then I met you, then I walked across campus a few more times to my assigned room to here, then I talked with you a while, a now I'm tired."

"Ok, ok." Grace rolled her eyes.

I went to lay down and go to sleep, but immediately sat up again. "I'm still wearing shoes." I pulled off my boots and tossed them onto the floor.

Grace grabbed one of them and tried to shove her foot into it. "Ow." She put her hand in it and pulled out a knife. "You keep a knife in your boot?"

"Yeah, what's your point?" I made the boot and the weapon come out of her hands and rest on the floor at the base of my bed via telekinesis.

"Nothing. Who says I have a point?"

"Night-night," I telekinetically turned off the lights.

"Night-night, R. Night-night."

Chapter 4

I woke up to being hit in the face with a sneaker. As I opened my eyes, another sneaker was heading towards me. I quickly used telekinesis to stop it in midair, then reverse its trajectory to hit my attacker in the face.

"Owww." Came Grace's protest.

I smirked and sat up, looking around to find myself surrounded by various items that were presumably thrown at me.

"What are you doing?" I gave Grace a look.

"Trying to wake you up. You were asleep for hours." She whined.

"That's usually how long people sleep, Grace." I chided her.

"Yeah, but it was, like, 10 hours. That's too long." She complained.

"Grace." I looked at her overly seriously. "I am part cat. I like sleeping. Got it?"

She pouted, glaring at me.

I rolled my eyes, and out of the bed. I stood up, found my boots, and slipped them on. "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."

"Saaaame. Let's go up to The Café." She suggested.

"Cool." I opened the door, and started to head out.

"Don't you want to get dressed?" She asked.

"Do I look like I care?"

She shrugged, and soon took the lead. We went to an elevator, headed up a few floors, then went through one of the big tube-like pathways that connected the various buildings together. We approached another building, went through a hallway, then onto a second walkway.

Through the plastic, I could see a massive metal structure ahead. It looked a little like a squished sphere with a flat bottom. I could see countless other paths branching off from it. The whole thing was being suspended in midair.

"That's some pretty powerful hovertech," I commented.

"Yeah. Even cooler is the microtech inside." She said.

"I know, I've already been here." I reminded here.

"Yeah, but that was with Yuna. I'm here to give you a grand tour." She assured me.

I rolled my eyes, and followed her in. The front room was shaped like a sphere that was cut in half, and the high ceiling was stunted by the floors of misshapen rooms above.

When Grace saw me staring up at it, she said, "The Café has the general shape of a sphere-"

"I know, I saw from the outside," I interrupted.

She glared at me, and continued, "The interior of the sphere is split in half. One half is the open space you see in front of you. The other half is basically a big network of rooms, and hallways - which you saw some of earlier."

"Cool." I was looking around the space we were in. It had the feel of an oversized living room with 30 entrances too many. The floor was a mesh of random carpeting, and the ceiling and walls were covered with years of paint, murals, and graffiti. The place had a variety of chairs, tables, couches, and students scattered across it.

Grace dragged me over to a wall where there was a large bakery display. A pretty blonde human was standing behind the counter.

"Hai Grace!" She greeted Grace cheerily.

"Hey, Paula!" Grace said back. "This is R." She pointed at me.

"Nice to meet you." I gave a little wave. "I'm her new roommate."

"Let me guess, you were trying to sleep, and she woke you up." She reached out to shake my hand.

"Yeah." I took her hand, and she flinched slightly at the electric shock that came with contact with me.

"What was that?" She asked when I let go.

"Nothing." I dismissed it, "How'd you guess?"

"Well, one you're still wearing pajamas, and two, I'm a telepath." She frowned, staring at my headphones. "Why can't I read your mind?"

"These headphones block most telepathic ability." I could feel the extra power from Paula, and was trying to stop myself from screaming. I'd met more powerful telepaths than her, but she was still stronger than most.

"Can I try to read your mind, anyways?" She asked, wanting to show off her power to me.

I shrugged, and she took that as a yes. About 3 seconds later, her face took on a deeply horrified expression.

"What?" Grace demanded, looking between the two of us, "What's going on?"

"She likes waffles." Paula hissed out.

I gave her a confused expression.

"That's all I see." She said in a normal, but confused voice. "Waffles?"

I shrugged, "I'm hungry."

"OK, waffles coming up." She disappeared, going back to a room I couldn't see.

Seeing my confused face, Grace said, "She also provides breakfast services."

I nodded.

We stood there for about ten minutes, chatting, when Paula came back with a box, and handed it to me. I took it, opened it, and gasped at the contents. It was a stack of syrup-drenched waffles, and it smelled delicious.

I looked back up at her, and she said, "On the house, unless Gracie would like to pay."

"What?" Grace exclaimed.

"You woke her up. Its your fault that she's here and hungry instead of sleeping."

Grace glared at her than said, "Just give me the scanner."

Paula smirked, and handed her a scanner pad. Grace placed her thumb on it, and was consequentially charged for my meal.

I grabbed a fork from a cup on the counter, and ran off to one of the chair-encircled tables. I sat down and dug it, wolfing down to the waffley goodness.

"Hope you're enjoying that." Grace grumbled, sitting down in the seat across from me.

I didn't answer until the entire meal was gone. "Wanna go down to the shooting range?"

"Yeah, of course I do." She stood up, and I followed her, tossing the box and plastic fork into a disintegrator can. "Wait a second," she stopped after we went a few feet into the tunnel, "did you read my mind?"

"Yeah, so?" I asked, sounding more confident than I felt.

She punched my arm, then shouted, "Race ya!"

I rolled my eyes as she ran down the hallway, and started moving with superspeed. Using the stairs once we got to our building, I was outside our room in seconds. I was standing there, leaning against the wall when Grace eventually came running up.

"Ha-Ha." I smirked down at her. "Beat ya."

"You cheated." She whined.

"You never stated that there were any rules in the first place." That got me a glare. "Come on." I opened the door to the room, and went over to the closet.

"What are you doing?" Grace asked when I closed myself in.

"Getting dressed." I yelled back. About a minute later, I emerged wearing a pair of jeans, and a hoodie. My tail was tucked down my pant leg.

"Let's go." I pointed to the door, and we headed out.

Chapter 5

It took a while, but we eventually ended up on the roof of a massive blue and black building. The roof had an enormous, invisible dome of a force field on top, preventing anything or anyone from falling off the roof. It was also soundproofed, which was a good thing, considering that a lot of the nearby building contained classrooms.

On the roof, there was a variety of target areas featuring weapons of all kinds. There was a group of frat boys firing off guns at dummies, and there were two girls competing with arrows. Otherwise, there wasn't that many people.

"Where do you want to start?" I asked Grace, who was looking around eagerly.

"Guns." Was her immediate response.

"Awesome." We headed over to the area where the guys were, and she picked up a laser rifle, and started blowing out bulls eyes.

I smiled, watching her. When she finished, she turned to me and said, "let's see what you got."

I shrugged, and picked up an old-fashioned handgun that shot round metal bullets. Holding the gun perpendicular to my body as I faced Grace, I shot four times. Thought I wasn't looking, I met all the dead center of four different targets.

"Impressive." Grace smiled.

"Hey, watch this." I smirked, having gotten an idea. I pointed over at the girls with the arrows. One of them had just fired, and the arrow had suddenly stopped in midair. The arrow flipped around, and hovered in front of the face of the girl who'd fired it.

"Hey!" She looked around, trying to figure out what was happening, "who's doing that?"

The arrow spun around in lazy circles, then shot straight up, colliding with the force field, then splintering in countless pieces.

Grace giggled, and the girl turned to face us, glaring. She started walking towards us, and I let out a small, "Ut oh."

"Which of you did that?" she asked in an angry calm.

"Well." Grace started, "the thing is-"

"Bye!" concentrating, I took a step forward, and everything around me immediately slowed down as I moved at superspeed. I gently picked up Grace, and secured her on my back. I then made a beeline to the exit, and eventually stopped in a tube.

"-we..." Grace looked around, then climbed off my back. I immediately missed the feel of her warmth. "What was that?" She asked.

"That was what you'd call a quick getaway." I said.

She gave me a look, then burst out laughing.

"What?" I protested, "We got away, and were quick about it."

"Why'd you do that?" she asked after about a minute of the peculiar laughter.

"Why not?" I shrugged. "I thought it'd be funny."

"Looks like you succeeded." She smirked.

I shrugged again.

"Come on, let's go." Grace grabbed my hand, and started heading down the hallway.

"Where?"