Chapter 130. The Right to Choose

My fingers tapped out a steady rhythm on the steering wheel. The parking lot outside the gym smelled of hot asphalt and exhaust, but the AC inside my car was blowing dry, cool air. Megan’s contact glowed on my smartphone screen.

My thumb hovered over the call icon.

Biological evolution was a useful thing. My physiology had adapted, my reflexes had gotten faster, and my brain chemistry now shut down panic and childish insecurities before they could even take hold. My metabolism worked like a tactical chronometer, precise and reliable in any weather. Mentally, I was ready to pack a backpack and set off to conquer Everest right then and there. But rationality had not gone anywhere. I was simply sitting there, weighing the risks and benefits of the call with the cold precision of an accountant balancing the books.

I needed data on the Corps’ various branches. At stake was an assignment that would determine the entire course of my future development. Megan was an ideal source of information: twenty years of service, firsthand experience, and no concern whatsoever about keeping things classified in a casual conversation. The problem was something else. Her way of communicating, that deeply ingrained, relentlessly cheerful habit of talking as if we had been sitting next to each other in class just yesterday, burned through my mental resources with the efficiency of an industrial furnace. We had not seen each other in two decades. I had long since grown accustomed to clear, well-defined boundaries. Megan simply did not seem to notice them.

On top of that, she was assigned to disaster response, the same branch Danny was in. Local news outlets and specialist forums had been obsessing over her hydrokinesis for years. Footage of her holding back walls of water had aired on every channel. I knew enough about her department. But her personal experience in the Corps was too valuable to ignore over something as trivial as discomfort.

I gave my head a slight shake, clearing away the excess emotional noise, and tapped the screen to make the call. Pure pragmatism.

“Oh, hey, Tom!” An energetic female voice burst through the speaker without so much as a pause. In the background, I could clearly hear oil sizzling in a pan and the rhythmic clatter of a spatula. An image immediately formed in my mind: Megan in a kitchen apron, flipping pancakes. “How’re you doing? Salary hit your account yet?”

No warm-up, no “I wasn’t expecting your call.” She went straight into everyday small talk, like she had kicked down the door. That contrast had always thrown me off. On one hand, logic told me to keep my distance from someone I barely knew anymore. On the other, it was easier to play along than waste time trying to tear down the walls she kept ignoring.

“Hey, Megan,” I replied in a calm, even tone, as if we had only parted yesterday in a parking lot. It was the most efficient way to close the distance and get to the information I needed. “The money came through. Thanks for kicking whoever needed kicking.”

“Oh, please. I didn’t do anything. I just asked someone to check where your paycheck had gotten stuck,” she said airily. Something clinked in the background. “Now that they’ve unfrozen your case, I’m guessing the ministry’s assignment letter is in your email too? My girl came in yesterday.”

“So where did the Corps decide to assign Mary?”

“Oh, she got three options based on her stats. First was combat units. But... well, you know how it is.” A distinct note of contempt slipped into her voice for a second. “They offer that to pretty much anyone with a pulse. They also offered logistics, hauling loot out of portals.”

“With her telekinesis, she could replace a forklift and a couple of trucks by herself.”

“Apparently the algorithm thought the same thing. You two clearly think alike.” Megan laughed brightly. “And the third option was protecting humanity from Mother Nature. Clearing rubble after earthquakes or cleaning up debris in orbit. It’s a perfect fit for her profile.”

“And what did Mary decide to choose?”

I understood the context perfectly well. Twelve-year-old Mary’s opinion ranked somewhere around the margin of error in this equation. For all her exuberant cheerfulness, Megan had nothing in common with the irresponsible mothers who let elementary school kids travel across the country on their own. Megan was kind, but she kept things under control.

“Well, that was an easy choice! Two great options out of three,” she sang, with the proud tone of a parent admiring a perfect report card. “Far from the front lines and with a solid paycheck. We submitted paperwork for both logistics and disaster response.”

“Covering your bases? If one branch turns her down, the other will take her?”

“Hm, getting picky, are we? Is that the old accountant in you talking?” Her laugh came through the speaker again. “Actually, no. If the algorithm grants you clearance, no personnel officer is going to say, ‘Thanks, we’ll call you.’ There are too few Awakened to waste people. You know how the system works. They’re always short on assault troops, so they pull people into portals from everywhere. No exceptions.”

“Except Selina Langstrom.”

“Oh, come on. Our little mean girl Selina’s brain is worth more than all the gold in the world,” Megan giggled. “She’s too valuable to risk under fire from alien machine guns. Unlike you and me.”

“Logical. And yet, why submit paperwork to two places at once if there’s only one official position?”

“And who told you there was only one?” Her voice took on a distinctly playful, ironic edge. Exactly like back in school, when she used to come up with another scheme for cheating on a test. I had always liked that about her. “Who says you can’t do both? Today my girl is collecting satellite scrap in orbit, tomorrow she’s moonlighting unloading a research complex from a portal. Double pay, double service credit, and an accelerated service multiplier. See the advantage?”

“And the government system actually lets you do that? General Crowley doesn’t punish people for gaming the system?”

“It’s called being a workaholic. They love that. A lot of people I know work exactly that way,” Megan snorted into the phone. “Like I said, we’re catastrophically short on personnel, so the Corps grabs any willing pair of hands. The only thing that matters is whether you can physically keep up with the hours. Start screwing up or failing your performance requirements, and you’re out. And if you get kicked out for negligence, there’s only one place you can go: straight into the assault troops. That’s the bottom of our service. Once you’re there, you don’t come back.”

“Useful information.” I slowly nodded, staring at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

The pieces in my head were starting to fall into place, but the picture was still incomplete. Logic told me to keep asking questions while she was in the mood to share information.

“Let’s say, purely hypothetically,” I began, choosing my words carefully. “Someone only needs three hours of sleep a night. And they’ve received offers from every single department in the Corps. No exceptions. What would you do if you were in their shoes?”

A thick, ringing silence filled the speaker. For a moment, the sizzling oil in her kitchen was the only sound. I actually pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure there wasn’t a problem with the connection.

“Wait... You actually got access to EVERY division?!” Her voice shot up an octave, brimming with pure, almost teenage excitement. Exactly like back in school, when someone brought forbidden cassette tapes to class. “Tom, holy crap! How’d you pull that off?!”

“A Bronze Star with a V device. It gives me the right to choose my assignment freely.”

“You’ve got a Bronze Star?!”

“Yeah. What’s the big deal?” I raised a hand and rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling my ears start to ache from her volume. “I thought the Corps handed those things out by the truckload for every little thing.”

“I’ve only got one Bronze Star... And it doesn’t have a V device,” she muttered, her cheerful tone instantly deflating as dry reality took over. “Just the standard award for years of service. I’m not in assault troops or intelligence. They only pull me into portals during general mobilizations. And even then, I’m at the back of the column, just spraying everything down with water from a safe zone. Nothing heroic, Tom. They don’t hand out medals for that.”

I said nothing. My assumptions about the Corps’ award system had been wrong. I had judged it by Captain Hawk’s twenty years of service and the bonuses he had received for his abilities, assuming that anyone lucky enough to have a useful set of superpowers walked around in a uniform covered in medals. Either Megan’s ability was not as useful to the Corps as I had assumed, or Hawk was not as ordinary as he seemed. Maybe he was one of those rare individuals who awakened before they had even finished first grade.

“So the algorithm didn’t lock you into a specific assignment. You get to choose where you want to go?” Megan quickly shifted gears, and her usual lightness returned to her voice. “So you submit an application, and then the personnel officers in each department review your file separately?”

“That’s exactly what the notice says.”

“Hm. That changes things. And it cuts into the advantage a little.” Megan thoughtfully tapped her nails against the countertop, the sound like a dry rattle. “My advice? Cast your net as wide as you can. Apply to every branch whose work you can physically handle. Don’t hold back in the cover letter. Lay out all your strengths and sell yourself as hard as you can. You’ll get your foot in the door somewhere.”

“And what if I get accepted by several departments at once? Wouldn’t that create a conflict of interest? Every department has its own chain of command and internal regulations.”

“First, they’re not going to take you everywhere, so don’t get carried away. They’ve got smart people working there too. Second, plenty of departments won’t require you to work forty hours a week. A lot of them need part-time specialists or people for specific assignments. The Education Department, for example, doesn’t just need full-time teachers. They also need mentors to hold newcomers’ hands and explain how everything works.”

“Got it. That’s genuinely useful. Anything else?”

“Hmm... Probably not.” She hesitated, and I heard her sigh. “Honestly, you kind of threw me for a loop. I’ve known people who managed to juggle jobs in two departments, three at the most. But getting a completely open invitation right out of the gate... I need to wrap my head around that myself.”

“All right. Talk to you later. And... thanks for the conversation, Megan.”

“Oh, stop! We’re old friends,” she snorted. “That’s what friends are for. Listening to each other’s nonsense and sharing what we’ve learned.”

The call ended. I lowered the smartphone into my lap, feeling an unpleasant, bitter taste lingering in my mouth.

We’re old friends.

She had said it so casually, as if there hadn’t been twenty years of absolute silence between us. The day I started high school immediately flashed through my memory. I had wanted to talk to her about the strange new feelings I was experiencing, share my plans, and tell her about everything else on my mind. Instead, she had simply changed her phone number and vanished from my life without a word.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head sharply, burning the sentimental garbage out of my thoughts. What was done was done. The past could not be rewritten, and the practical takeaway from the conversation was more than solid. The situation was clear: I did not have to tie myself to a single department. My physical condition and reduced need for sleep would let me build a flexible schedule, while the skills I had picked up as a former clerk would help me handle the paperwork in departments where I would not be expected to risk my neck on the front lines.

I unlocked the screen and opened my contacts, scanning the handful of names with a detached expression. I needed one more source, but my options were extremely limited. The only Awakened people in my contacts were Sam and Ted.

I crossed Ted off immediately. A green kid who barely understood where he had ended up himself. His opinion was worthless.

That left Sam and his inexhaustible optimism. But I already knew his position by heart. He would start pushing intelligence again, quoting his much-admired Bruce Lee, and passionately arguing that my true calling was to become a teacher and pass my experience on to the younger generation. There was no point wasting time listening to the same speeches all over again.

There was no one else to call.

It was time to put together a résumé.