Around the Table

Aaron Cyrus: February 21st,20XX

The atmosphere in the dining room was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and the silence was burdensome. Joyce had woken up about an hour earlier and had summoned everyone to the room for a chat.

We all took our seats around the rectangular table, but how we sat made our affiliations clear.

Joyce and I took to the head of the table and sat at the two fanciest seats. It was a formal family table so the top sides could hold two chairs and the sides four.

Archer and his little sister, Eva, took the left side of the table and moved their chairs so close together, that they practically shared a seat. Even without commenting on their closeness, it was obvious by their looks they were blood-related siblings.

They shared the same long and slightly curly hair that framed their small faces; but the greatest resemblance laid in their large, haunting grey eyes. Long, dark lashes rimmed the odd-coloured eyes and made the siblings look half asleep despite having just slept.

Archer, who I’d chatted with until now, looked around the table apprehensively and tried to take in everyone’s face. I could see his body tense up as he realized that five out of six of the seated people had abilities.

Tillo, who was about a year older than Archer, carried a similar nervous air. He and Kaja resembled each other even more than usual today and had similar hairstyles and clothing. I wasn’t familiar with all the items in Cherry’s closet, but I knew there was no way she would ever have t-shirts and felt overalls like the twins wore. Tillo had probably changed the clothes, but going by the pleased expression on Kaja’s face, it was probably her idea.

Gordon was out yet again, picking up some clothes and daily supplies for the two new children. While it would have been better to let them go out and pick out what they wanted, most of them weren’t in any shape to be taken out in public. Joyce had just picked out a few generic things to get them started and would take them out shopping when their wounds had healed up a bit and she’d gotten them to a salon.

“Okay! Why don’t we start our introductions! There’s one more girl who we’ll meet in a few days, but since you’ll all be living together until then, we should get to know each other! You all probably know this, but I’m Joyce Knightly, head of Squire inc. and the founder of the Page program that you applied to! I’m twenty-two years old and my superpower is money, as I have a lot.”

She finished her self-introduction with a lighthearted joke and turned to me to go next.

I wasn’t a fan of self-introductions, but I’d done enough of them to be used to it.

“I’m Aaron Cyrus, a tennis player and Joyce’s boyfriend. I’m twenty-two as well, and my superpower is gravity manipulation.”

Kaja and Tillo elbowed each other to see who would go next, but Archer stepped up and put on a cautious smile.

“I’m Archer Warrick, and this is Eva of the same last name. I’m fifteen and she’s eight. My powers are mind-reading and telekinesis and Eva can talk into people’s minds and cast illusions. It takes a toll on her body so she can’t do it too often.”

Tillo looked relieved at the delay, but Kaja looked annoyed and quickly followed up after Archer, unwilling to go last.

“I’m Kaja Lando and I’m a shapeshifter. I’m sixteen years, three months, twenty-one days and 6 minutes old.”

“And I’m Tillo Lando, also a shapeshifter. I’m sixteen years, three months, twenty-one days and 3 minutes old. I don’t keep track but Kaja does and I’m three minutes younger than her.”

Joyce let out a pleased laugh at their unique self-introductions and typed something down on her phone.

“Aha, you can use that in your introductory videos on Squire, it’s cute. Now, I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

I’d expected Archer to be the first to volunteer questions considering how he’d interrogated me a few hours ago, but he stayed silent and stared the rest of the table down.

Come to think of it, Tillo and Kaja were the weird ones for not being surprised that there were other ability users. I’d had over a month to cope with the news and prepare to meet them, but the twins had accepted it in stride.

The table stayed silent for a few minutes too long, and I realized that the kids were too nervous to ask Joyce any of the questions they might have had. I took the initiative and offered a question I thought they would want to be answered.

“Well, I’d assume they want to know what you’ll want to do with them.”

She sent me a playful glare to show her displeasure at how I’d phrased the question, but I trusted that she wasn’t mad. Still, I should probably back off messing with her for now. She still hadn’t seen what I’d accidentally done to the kitchen floors.

“I’ll take you all on an official tour tomorrow, but if I were to summarize it, I want to help all of you learn how to use your powers. More than that, I don’t want these powers to become a hindrance to you all. It started with just wanting to help Aaron. But when I found the rest of you, I couldn’t leave you to figure things out on your own when I knew that I could help.”

The way she spoke reminded me of a press conference and the kids looked interested in her words, but I could see the doubt in their eyes.

“I talked to Archer about this earlier, but you guys won’t have to do anything you don’t want to. There may be a few things you want to do but can’t, but we aren’t here to control you. There is still the Page program so you guys can just focus on that if you decide that using your powers is too much. I don’t expect the rest of you to share how you discovered your abilities, but my story was pretty rough. I panicked, and the first person I thought to go to was Joyce.”

Feeling more and more like a participant of a cult giving a confessional, I continued to preach about how reliable Joyce was. As hero obsessed as she was, and as excitable as she could be, she was a good person, and I wanted the kids to see that they could trust her.

Tillo finally raised his hand, possibly emboldened by my speech, and asked the first question.

“What type of ‘help’ will we be getting? You won’t strap us to a chair and poke around our brains, will you?”

Archer perked up at the question, and I could tell that he’d thought about that as well.

“What? No! Again, you won’t have to do a single thing you truly don’t want to do, I’ll put my name on the line to promise you that. We have a team of scientists, but they’re only there to help you quantify your powers and make suggestions toward understanding them better. I can’t say it’s guaranteed to help you all, but they’ve helped Aaron find out more efficient ways to use his powers.”

“What’s the page program about? It made sense before I knew you were hunting down people with powers, but why go through all that trouble?”

Kaja threw her question at Joyce in a tone that could be best described as boisterous. It was non-aggressive, but it still caught my girlfriend off guard.

She took a minute to collect her thoughts before speaking slowly.

“Well, there were a few reasons. The first was, as you said, I was searching for kids like you and I needed a reason to gather you all. The second was because I wanted to help you all secure a future after you learn to control your powers. I don’t know how long it will take, but since most of you are minors. School is one thing, but it worried me that these powers might cause you all to miss opportunities that you would otherwise have had. Last, it was a program my company was already planning to launch, I just sped up the timeline.”

Archer raised a hand for a question, but Joyce’s phone beeped aggressively. Sher tried to ignore it for the first time, but after the third ring, she gave an apologetic smile and turned to the side to pick up the call.

“What is it, Annora? I thought I told you my phone was off today.”

She went silent and the frown on her face twisted into a conflicted expression.

“What? A police station?”