"I get that you two are lovebirds, but take it somewhere else," she warned, "Right now we need to cover your most important training and I need the team leader to be able to focus."
Ashton snapped out of his confusion to Summer’s flustered apology. She seemed honestly embarrassed about making a scene in front of everyone. Ashton had to admit it had been a bit clumsy, but he was relieved nonetheless. Summer might not know everything yet, but she would know enough to see him as a threat. Despite that, she still liked him. With his uneasiness settled, Ashton found it much easier to focus on the task at hand.
Harper guided them all to a private meeting room and gave them each a pamphlet. “As you know, this is an experimental specialized unit designed for dealing with mental, emotional, and other unseen types of powers,” she began, “Your job will not be to subdue them, but to make a decision on information you will gather in the field. The lives of each target will be in your hands. Your team captain has already helped one such individual.”
There was only one person Ashton could think of that matched that description. Sure enough, the door to the room opened and a familiar face stepped inside. He seemed a lot calmer now. It seemed his decision had not been a mistake after all.
“John Doe,” Ashton recalled, “Has his power been completely neutralized?”
“It has,” the man confirmed, “And now everyone is slowly beginning to remember me. My family, my name, and even my very existence have been saved thanks to that serum. For privacy reasons I will still be going as John Doe here.”
That was a wise move. His barely regained identity could be compromised if anything were to go wrong. Ashton couldn’t help but wonder if he would feel that peaceful without the cursed power that haunted him.
“What kind of power did you have?” Summer asked.
As if waiting for this question, John began to explain his power and the drawbacks it carried. Despite experiencing that power himself, it hadn’t occurred to Ashton how much it would threaten his life. It was also interesting to know that the power grew stronger as he got older, and the time people remembered him would decrease. As for driving, would it be possible for a man who was always forgotten to even get a driver’s license?
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“As you can see, many of the mental abilities are more of a threat to themselves than to others,” Harper explained, “That is why it will be your main job to find them and save them. You will have the authority to administer the serum to a willing subject, but if you believe they must be apprehended or are a serious threat to yourselves, you will need to call in reinforcements. John will be working here under an alias to coach you through the process of administering the permanent serum and the paperwork involved.”
That would be a great help, especially since John was the one who had received the serum. He could advise them on whether or not it would actually benefit their target and give information on how it felt to be permanently powerless.
“Who will we be calling for backup?” Ashton asked.
Harper seemed pleased with the productive question. “As he has worked with you before, and had some luck with dealing with mental types, Jared’s team will be your primary backup. If he is unavailable, we will have others on standby.”
“Does this mean everything is already set up for us once our training ends?” Ashton checked.
“Exactly,” Harper confirmed, “Once I declare you have graduated, the higher ups will select an appropriate test case. It will be something simple and more or less nonthreatening, but it will be very real. Real is always far different from training, so don’t let your guards down just because it is meant to be an easy test.”
That advice seemed sound to Ashton, but he didn’t like the fact that their graduation from training, or lack thereof, could be decided by Harper on a whim. “When will you declare our training is over?” Ashton demanded.
Harper gave him the sort of look a disapproving parent would give their impatient child on a road trip. “When you are ready,” she replied, “Until then, focus on getting to know each other and working as a team. You have all proven yourselves alone, but we need you as an organized unit, not a bunch of solo hero wannabes.”
After all his time at SI, being called a hero wannabe was more insulting than being called a villain. Ashton couldn’t deny that they hadn’t really figured out a system to work together well yet. In that case, communication would be key. As the team leader, perhaps he should come up with some test scenarios to see how each of them thought things should be dealt with. Just like those annoying situation quizzes that popped up in interviews.
“In that case, can I have more information on any of the other mental abilities that have been discovered so far?” Ashton asked, “I only know of two, but being more informed would give us a better chance of reacting appropriately in a real situation.”
“Of course. I figured you might ask about that,” Harper acknowledged, nodding to the papers she had given them at the beginning, “Those are your homework. It will only mention abilities and known use cases with no names or personal descriptions, but it will give you a better grasp of what your team was formed to prevent.”
