Chapter 21 – Micro Abilities

“You’ve been ignoring me all week,” Brody accuses when I enter my room again that Wednesday.

“Well hello to you too,” I greet and close the door behind me. “How’s your day been?”

“So what, it’s okay for the great Langdale to help out the poor, helpless Boy, as long as no one knows she’s associating with him? That’s mighty big of you, thank you for your most gracious pity. I will forever be in your debt,” he says in anger, not mockery or irony.

“Are you done now?” I ask and pull a coke out of my bag and hand it to him. I take my seat opposite him on the bed and empty the rest of the bag, throwing chips and chocolate on the bed. “I just thought maybe it’d be easier to hide out here if no one suspected I’d have reason to hide you. It would seem weird if suddenly we were the best of friends, and no one had seen us anywhere together.”

“You didn’t talk to me in class so I would still have a place to hide out?” he asks in disbelief and spot, but some of the anger disappears.

“Well, it made sense in my head,” I defend myself. He picks up a bag of chips and starts eating them. I look at the time, it’s just past four. Welcome to 8 hours of awkwardness.

“Did you know there’s no pizza place on this entire island? No fast food whatsoever.”

“Why would there be? Everyone eats at the school.” And as delicious as that is, sometimes you just want a pizza, not fish five times a week.

“Everyone? Including the shopkeepers?”

“Most of them yeah. The cafeteria is open to rest of the island when our lunch break ends.”

“The things you learn. Anyways, I hope you’re okay with chips for dinner – unless of course, you want to go down to the dining hall?” He doesn’t answer. Despite the fact that he looks like he eats about a meal a week, the dining hall would still be an obvious place to search or lay in wait. “We can figure out something more substantial later, I can’t skip dinner every Wednesday, that would seem weird.”

“But not today? Given how you acted last time.”

“Last time they didn’t find you here. Besides, if anyone does notice my absence, they’d probably assume I’m in the library or taking a power nap.” I summon the Set game again and lay it out for us.

“Have you ever tried micro movements?” he asks after a minute of silent consideration.

“You mean that class with the pearls? That was easy enough.” He shakes his head at me as if I’m stupid.

“No, I mean micro. I mean moving things smaller than the eye can see. I mean moving atoms.” I look up at him, but he’s still looking down at the chips in his lap.

“Moving atoms?” How in the world would I be able to do that? I can’t feel them.

“You mastered the blind thing easily enough it seems, I just thought you might be able to do that too.”

“If I could,” I start. “That would mean…”

“That you potentially could do anything. You could rearrange them as you wanted, you could divide them and walk through anything you wished. If you were strong enough you could learn to control electrons and protons too, you could make anything from scratch.”

“I could heal a wound.” I imagine it. If something like the Unassigned’s attack were to ever happen again, I could heal the wound instead of just stopping the bleeding.

“You could be the strongest Maquí in all the world.”

“Maquí?”

“The unofficial official name for people with abilities.”

“Why unofficial?”

“Because officially we’re just humans, like everyone else.” The last part is pronounced with a hint of detest. “Close your eyes,” he orders me. I look up at him instead. “Close your eyes,” he orders again. “I’m not going to hurt you.,” he assures me with an annoyed tone. I don’t even know how to respond to that sentence, so I do as he tells me to instead. “Hold out your hand,” he orders. I bite my lip, a bit annoyed at his conviction I’ll do whatever he says as long as he says it in a forceful voice. I slowly, hesitantly, lift up my hand and hold it out. He grabs hold of it and forces it palm up.

“Rumor has it you’ve managed the negative space. Use that to see what I’m holding over your hand.” I pull my hand to me and open my eyes.

“You can’t trust rumors,” I inform him. I still haven’t been able to do it since Pam was attacked.

“I know that,” he says as if I hurt his pride. He looks down again and busies himself with the chips. “I just thought you might want to learn, that’s all.” I lean back against the wall.

“Everyone seems to think I’m not mastering everything in a heartbeat because I don’t want to.”

“That’s because you’re a Langdale. You’re supposed to be able to learn everything in a heartbeat. You should be thankful.”

“Being a Langdale doesn’t mean I don’t have to work at things. I’m still human. Why should I be thankful for people assuming things about me?”

“They could assume worse things,” he says simply and picks out another chip.

“Like they assume you’ll hurt them?” I ask, knowing that I might simply make him mad.

“Something like that.” He holds out the chip and floats it upwards.

“You…” I say in surprise. I’ve never seen him use his ability before. “You’re a Transporter.” With how professor Holt runs the class I wasn’t sure.

“I am Unassigned,” he says. I look up at the chip in the air, and back to him.

“Then how can you…”

“I have the gene, I taught myself how to use it.” ‘Others have managed control enough to join classes’ professor Holt said. How many others?

“So you weren’t born with any gifts,” I deduce.

“I taught myself everything. No one here assumed I could.”

“They assume I can do everything, and that you can do nothing.”

“I proved them wrong,” he says. “I taught myself Minding, Nature and Transforming.”

“And now you’re working on Transporting,” I assume. “You must be really strong to be able to do all of that.”

“Working on Timing, actually. And no, I’m not strong at all, I just learned to use my gene instead of letting the power build up and flow over.”

“If you’re not on Transporting now, then how…” I point at the chip.

“Nature; control of the four elements. Air,” he explains. “You try it, take it from me. That’s what your negative space is all about, isn’t it, moving air?” I look at him, trying to read him. He looks down at his other hand fiddling with my bedsheets. I close my eyes but keep most of my focus on him. I try reaching up and taking the chip, but I can’t move it. I’ve never tried that before, everything moves when I tell it to.

“Move the air,” he tells me. I’m not sure if he knows I tried to move the chip, or if he simply knows I didn’t try to move the air. I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly, getting the feel of it. I blow again, this time feeling further away, going out as far as I can while still being able to feel it. I hold there and blow again, testing if I can still sense it. It’s like seeing a shadow out of the corner of your eye which disappears as soon as you look at it. Something brushes against my hands and I grab hold of it, like smacking a mosquito. He doesn’t say anything, just lifts the air I’m holding up to eye height. He stops there, and I feel around for something that feels the same as his unmoving air. Like a brachiate; I manage to find something else to hold on to.

“Cut a way through it.” I take another deep breath to steady my mind. I feel around his ball of air, letting my mental feel brush lightly against it. It’s uneven, kind of bumpy. It’s what I would imagine frozen smoke to feel like. I pick a spot close to the chip, and with a small pressure point, I try to force it to move.

“Are you hitting the air?” he asks confused. I ignore him. “Air is just molecules far apart. Go smaller and make your way in between them.” I clench my teeth. He has no right to order me around like that, make me feel like an idiot.

“It’s not about force,” he tells me. “Air isn’t heavy, it doesn’t take a lot to move it.” He has no right… I take a deep breath again and try to steady my thoughts. Despite his condescending tone, he has a point. Smaller, he said. I try. I do my best to make the impact as small as I can.

“Smaller,” he orders again. I bite my anger in and try. I have all my mental energy focus on the point of a needle by now.

“Smaller.” Would you just… I bite it in. It’s not about force, I remind myself. Delicate, not forceful. I force my energy as small as I can, pressing it in, holding my breath, clenching my teeth. And then I let go. I let it all fly free again, let it scatter to a more comfortable position. All of it, except one small part which I keep exactly where it was. Energy is something you build up with time, it’s sort of like having extra hands. When I was little I had one extra hand, I could throw a ball without touching it. Nowadays I can hold pearls steady, as many as I like. I only need one extra hand to grab a chip, so I let the rest of the energy flow away. Hundreds of hands pressed down to the point of a needle, and then one left exactly as squeezed as it was before, and suddenly the space occupied is much, much smaller.

“Did you give up?” he mocks. I make my way through the molecules in the air, slowly, trying not to bump into anything. The thing is, the size of your tool also determines your sensibility. You can’t move a single grain of sand with a shovel, but with a pair of tweezers, it suddenly becomes much easier – though still not easy at all. Once you have the right tool, the details suddenly become clearer, and the task simpler. I can feel the molecules around me now, I can feel them as if they were planets floating around me. I reach the chip and crumple it. I open my eyes and look up at him triumphantly.

“I suppose that could have been worse,” he mumbles.

“Oh, come on, it’s been less than a week since my first lesson.” He mumbles something about ‘for a Langdale’.

“Fine then.” I grab the chocolate and notebook. “Enjoy your dinner,” I tell him and leave for the library. I regret the loss of temper as soon as I get there – what if they do a search again? But of course, with the ability to control air he can escape to the roof on his own. Plus, I don’t know how he would take it if I came sulking back – would he assume I was too weak hearted to go through with it, that I decided I didn’t trust him alone in my room… As strange as he is, I would not pick him for the thieving type, especially since stealing from me would be admitting that I have something he needs or wants. No, it’s better to stay at the library.