Crossed Off: Students (Part II)

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When Starla woke up the next morning, the first thing she did was complain about Alec lying to her. “You had the entire rest of yesterday to tell me that you’re planning to drag me to Kansas City.”

“I was trying to choose my words carefully.”

“Yes. You are known for not speaking clearly when you don’t have the whole night to think about it.”

“We’re doing this, Starla.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what normal people do; they go see their friends, physically. They get in a car, train, or plane, and they move through space in real-time. I think you kind of need to see what that’s like.”

“That sounds incredibly exhausting. I don’t know how you get through the day like that. I’m fine the way I am. I won’t kill myself, I promise.”

“If you think that this trip is only about that then you obviously don’t understand what friendship is.”

“It’ll be rather awkward, won’t it? I just met Kathleen, and now we’re going to visit her brother four states over? What’s your cover again? How does she think you even know Tristan?”

“We told her that we met at archery camp.”

“You haven’t picked up a bow in your life.”

“I’m thinking about picking it up. Tristan makes it sound interesting.”

“That he does. He doesn’t care about anything but Kathleen and archery.”

Kathleen came back into the room with a towel wrapped around her still dripping body. “What’s this?”

“Uh...what?” Alec asked.

“This door isn’t very thick. What did you say about not doing archery?”

Oh no. Alec and Starla tried to come up with excuses for what they had meant during the conversation, but nothing sounded plausible. They ended up breaking down and just telling the truth about Starla’s ability to switch bodies with people. Kathleen was surprisingly open to the idea, and requested proof politely, which Starla obliged. They would have called her healthily skeptical.

“This is going to make things a lot easier, isn’t it?” Kathleen asked. “Not having to tiptoe around me anymore? I did always found your relationship with my brother a tad bit suspicious. I didn’t think too much of it, though. He’s always been into younger guys, but doesn’t think I know, so I figured you were together, or at least had been before.”

“No,” Alec laughed. “We’ve actually never met in real life.”

“Well.” She slapped her knees with finality. “I’m going to get dressed first, and then spend the next few days going to classes. Then we’ll all go up together. It’ll be a fun road trip!” She dramatically pulled her towel away and finished drying off.

She’s taking this a little too easily, Starla said to Alec telepathically.

You’re so hesitant of people, Alec thought back to her. Just because you didn’t read her thoughts—and you definitely shouldn’t do that—doesn’t mean she has something to hide.

I don’t read people’s thoughts anymore, Starla countered. You taught me how to stop that, and I haven’t anymore. Don’t judge me.

Kathleen eyed them curiously while she was putting on her shorts. “Are you two talking to each other?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Were you talking about me?” Kathleen asked.

“No,” Starla replied. “We were discussing the events during yesterday’s sports competition.”

“Oh yeah?” Kathleen put her hands on her hips. “What sport?”

Starla thought about it for a second. “Vector?”

Kathleen laughed and looked to Alec. “How has she not yet been caught? She’s a terrible liar.”

“Could you teach me?”

Kathleen stopped getting dressed for a second, assessing the situation to make sure they were no longer joking before she answered, “I most certainly can.”

Starla spent the next few days attending Alec’s and Kathleen’s classes as a prospective student. Kathleen was particularly interesting in bringing her to a special lecture on neurobiology, targeted at students interested in pursuing the subject after completing the general requirements. They sat next to Kathleen’s gracer, Denton. The first thing the guest speaker did was throw up a slide with an image of a human brain in the middle of surgery. “This is a brain,” Magnus Shapiro said. “More specifically, this is my brain.”

A young man covered his mouth desperately with his hand and struggled to leave the room.

“Lost another one I see. If you can’t handle this, you are in the wrong field of study. Neurobiology, and really biology of any kind, is not for you.” He paused to let people leave as they needed, but no one else did. “The human brain is the most powerful machine in the universe. It is highly efficient, potentially limitless, and shockingly underused. You are all idiots. Evolution gave this gift of an intelligent mind, and you fail to utilize it properly. Don’t be sad, it’s not your fault. Because biology also placed roadblocks on your mind. If you could fire your neurons to the absolute best of their ability, there is no telling what you would do. Possible results of a less hindered mind include accelerated learning, control of normally involuntarily biological processes like breathing and heartbeat, superior body temperature regulation, and even possibly the subversion of death. If you could somehow...” he gathered her words “...tell your body to regrow limbs, repair damage, or fight off a disease in a certain way, you would never reach death.”

A girl in the front row raised her hand and Magnus Shapiro called on her. “Magnus, if we were all immortal, the planet would be overpopulated, and we would run out of resources.”

“Would we?” Shapiro asked rhetorically. “Before we reach that level of intellect, surely we would have solved other problems. Food, land space, and construction materials are only restricted by our current situation. There are hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy alone. It is estimated that there are 500 million planets capable of supporting life to the level of ours, and many more with other resources. All we have to do is figure out how to get there. One man can do that. Just make one man smart enough to solve these problems, and ask him for his help. He’ll lift everybody else up.”

Starla looked over and saw that Denton was enamored with the lecture, almost like he was in a trance. Kathleen looked between him and Starla, like she had a secret of her own. She smiled and nodded to Denton. Starla shook her head, unclear what she wanted. Kathleen just urged her on, and continued to motion to Denton. Did she want her to possess his body? Assuming that to be her intention, Starla closed her eyes and prepared to jump into Denton’s body. She had to think about it beforehand, otherwise she could choose the wrong method and give herself away. She took a deep breath and jumped, leaving her body looking like she was only sleeping, continuing to listen to the lecture from Denton’s point of view. The experience was fascinating. Denton was eating up the Magna’s words. He was processing the information at a rate that she had never felt before. He seemed to be gathering information from other people as well, even though they weren’t speaking. He wasn’t reading their minds. It was more like he was absorbing their knowledge. Had she met another avatar? Could he teach her to do the same?

“...who knows what kind of powers a hyperintelligent human being might have,” Shapiro went on. “Is telekinesis possible? Could someone be so empathetic to others that their own body can be altered on a glandular level?” As he was scanning the crowd for their reactions, he stopped on Starla and Denton. He watched them for a second, causing the students to wonder what was going to happen next. “Could a person use their mind to see what life is like from another person’s perspective? The literal manifestation of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes?”

Out of fear, Starla quickly jumped back into her body and gasped for air. Everyone looked up at her. “Sorry, I’m fine,” she lied.

Magnus Shapiro kept looking at her for a moment before moving on with his speech. He looked back up to them every once in a while, especially when he hit points that were eerily relevant to Starla’s ability. After it was over, Kathleen said that she had to get clear across campus quickly, and asked Denton to take Starla back to the dorm room.

“I can do that, but I was hoping to speak with the magnus first,” Denton said

“I’d love to do that as well,” Starla said. “So that works out perfectly.”

Other students had flocked to ask Shapiro questions, but he was pretty much ignoring them. He was staring at the two of them as Denton was wheeling Starla towards him. He waved his hand to the rest of the students. “I’ve stolen Magnus Björkman's office for the rest of the week. I’ll answer any questions tomorrow.” The students didn’t know what to do. “That’ll be all. Thank you very much,” he clarified. They finally took the hint and dispersed.

Denton nodded with respect. “Magnus.”

“I’m pretty hungry,” the magnus said to him. “Could you recommend a nice quiet place to eat in this town?”

Denton smiled. “I sure could.”

“Great.”

“Would you have room for company?” Denton asked.

“I hate to eat alone.” He looked down at Starla. “As long as you’re coming too.”

She was a little anxious, but she had to understand not only how Denton’s special mind worked, but also how the professor was somehow able to sense them. “Sure.”

“Wonderful.”

< > Entire Story

Microstory 105: Blake Williams

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

There were a handful of anomalies who had some form of telekinesis; the ability to move objects from a distance. They each had their own niche, and none of them possessed a more generic variety like that which one might find in the witches or prosper humans. Blake Williams was no different, though his was probably the most frustrating and, at first, the least useful. He could create small seismic events, which was perfect for all those times he desperately needed to knock over a table or shatter a few glasses. For the first few times that it happened, his mothers assumed that they were just experiencing minor tremors. However, they grew suspicious when the quakes began to follow them around, and were always so very localized. Having known no other way, Blake never thought to explain to them that he felt a surge of energy in his chest every time it happened, and that he was always rather moody at the moment. Since he was so young, he just assumed that that’s what people felt when quakes were happening. Once they realized that he was the source of the disturbances, they immediately got to work. They enrolled him in Eastern spiritual disciplines so that he could learn ways to remain calm and centered. They spent their very last dime purchasing a nearby botanical garden so that Blake could always find tranquility. They encouraged him to become a hair stylist because it was considered to be one of the least stressful careers. He was happy, and the only time he ever generated quakes was when he chose to (i.e. never). After years of a sheltered but contented existence, he decided to take a trip to the coast. While he was there, the area began experiencing what was shaping up to be one of the largest and most devastating seismic events in history. Except that it didn’t. As it started, and Blake was sure that it wasn’t originating from him, he instinctively planted himself on the ground and lowered his center of gravity. He quickly discovered the shaking from the ground being drawn into his body and dissipating. He was settling the quake, rather than creating it. There was no telling how many lives Blake Williams saved that day, but it gave him a pretty good rush. He quit his job and revealed his secret to a team of scientists who were working on predicting seismic activity so that he could travel the world and prevent them on the regular.

Microstory 104: Helen Larkin

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Helen Larkin was born into a gigantic family with everyone living close together, but the only one she knew of with her own special ability was her cousin, Jen. One thing later learned about anomaly abilities was that they were logically genetic. “Anomaly” wasn’t just its own separate category that allowed each individual to have any random ability. With enough time and data, one could conceivably trace an anomaly’s lineage back to the original test subject thousands of years ago. If, for instance, the anomaly could manipulate fire, that would mean that their ancestor underwent experiments involving fire. But Helen was different; an anomaly among anomalies. While Jen could harness the power of human biofuel, Helen could channel other people’s abilities. Of course, until they encountered a third one of their kind, they had assumed that they simply shared the same ability. Over the years, and with the help of Bellevue, Helen’s acuity grew enormously. She was able to channel abilities across great distances, learned better control of them, and could permanently absorb the abilities of the deceased. Anyone who didn’t know her might have been worried that she would turn to murder in order to increase her power in this way, but Helen was wholly good. Bellevue, as an organization, was designed to solve the world’s problems on massive scales. They were attempting to use people’s abilities to invent paradigm-shifting technologies, and gain perspective on social issues. The abilities themselves were secondary. After careful thought, however, Helen decided that her abilities would be put to better use as short-term strategies. She became one of the first of a select few so-called superheroes.

Microstory 103: Shaun Rice

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

Shaun Rice lived in the cold of northern Dakota. He discovered as a child that he could create holograms out of nothing. He decided to tell no one about his ability. After years of practice, he learned nothing more about it. What he could do on the first day was precisely what he could do as an adult. He didn’t progress, and he didn’t change. At some point, he realized that his ability probably had something to do with his decision to become a graphic designer, ultimately working at a local news station. Shaun only ever revealed his secret to his family, but mostly out of necessity. His extramarital son presented an ability of his own, though all he seemed to be able to do was basically suck all the light out of the immediate area. Claude was pretty bummed about how lame his ability was, and exhibited poor behavior throughout adolescence. His daughter by his wife, however, was extraordinary. Catriona exercised more control over her holograms; focusing the light better so that they looked more real. She could hold up multiple holograms without thinking, and make them move as they would in the real world. It was because of her that he agreed to move his entire family to Bellevue. She needed to be around others like her, and have free reign to be herself. There were very few other children at Bellevue, and even fewer of them were Generation Twos like Catriona and Claude. He was devastated when she went missing, along with other children. He would later find out that their disappearance had something to do with his wife who had a secret of her own.

Microstory 102: Jaklyn Simonds

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

Jaklyn Simonds was born into a fairly uninteresting family. The most exciting thing her parents did was spell their daughter’s name oddly. They went to work for their five hours everyday, they provided her with food and shelter, and they let her go to the movies. Nothing was expected of her, and they were never disappointed in her. The thing that Jaklyn wanted most was to be able to see far away lands. Her parents never outright told her that she couldn’t, but they never took her on vacation, and it didn’t really occur to her that she could ask them about it. One day, when she was even more bored than usual, she was looking at pictures of beaches. Suddenly, she was overcome with a bright blue light. She found herself, not only on a beach, but the beach from the last picture she was on. No one was able to see her, and she had a hard time interacting with objects there. There was some kind of protective force field around her that made it feel like she was trying to pick things up with oversized gloves. After some practice, and a little help from a new friend, she learned how to control her ability better. She could go wherever she wanted, whether she had seen it in a photo or not. She discovered that she could allow people to see her, if she so chose, but she was not able to remove objects from a location and take them back to her origin. And if she wanted to go somewhere else, she would always first have to return to her origin. She immediately enrolled in geography classes in college so that she could understand how to navigate. One time, she accidentally ended up on the moon, and was grateful for the force field. Having failed to even make an attempt to study anything but geography and a bit of astronomy, she ended up not attaining her degree. Her parents didn’t care, so she left home and spent the majority of her time exploring; stealing food from her origin as needed. It wasn’t until later that her abilities were enhanced so that they were less like projection, and more like teleportation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing that changed about her. She grew—not evil—but hateful and envious. And she became dangerous.

Microstory 101: Bellevue Profiles

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

A very long time ago, a group of scientists were living in a dystopia. Because of this, the regulations on scientific endeavors were all but nonexistent. They broke nearly every law of ethics and began to perform genetic manipulation experiments on human subjects. Their results were inconclusive at best, and extremely volatile at worst. Many of their guinea pigs died, but a few of them survived and propagated the species. Their bloodlines showed little to no signs of being different than regular universal humans. Eventually, their history was forgotten as lore. Thousands of years later, however, upon the birth of The Keystone, these anomalies were awakened. During evolution’s final push back towards the mean, a certain number of people began to exhibit extraordinary abilities. Each of these had their own particular set of skills, and Generation Twos were notably rare. The Keystone gathered them to an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere. There they taught each other further skills, and argued over what their purpose in the world may be. But very few of their origin stories took place in Bellevue.

For the next one hundred microstories, I will be giving you a short introduction to each one of these anomalies, along with a few members that had no abilities at all, but still contributed immensely to history. I’ve actually already begun. Due to extenuating circumstances, Starla’s story requires a full weekly series. I have 21 Saturdays total to do something with, and we’ll cross the next bridge once we’re over this one (why did they build consecutive bridges?). I will also be profiling a number of antagonists who acted against Bellevue, but you won’t know who they are from only this. If you want more details, keep reading my stories. I need a following if I’m going to be able to produce more. Please note that these profiles are subject to change according to later decisions and collaborative developments. I still think you’ll find them interesting, but I would consider these early introductions as subcanon; that is, mostly canonical.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 7, 2031

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Aura (formerly known as Lauren) Gardner dove across the car and tackled her son. “Matty!”

He hugged her tightly back.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t have a choice. They took me. They took me away from  you, and I’ve been trying to get back ever since. I never thought I would, but I guess they’re done with me. I’m here. You’re here. Everything is going to be fine.” She backed up a bit. “Let me get a look at you. My, it’s been, what? Fifteen years, maybe twenty? Oh, you have so much to tell me, I’m sure. But first, I need to explain where I’ve been.”

“I know where you’ve been,” Mateo admitted.

“How would you know that? Did you find Edward’s records?”

“Better,” Theo jumped in. “He found Edward. I go by Theo now.”

Aura stared at Theo like he was a ghost and fell back to her seat.

“You were reincarnated too?” the other man asked.

“Indeed...what name has been chosen for you this time?”

“Samsonite,” the man said. “Aura and I felt our new assignments before we left. That’s how we knew that we were jumping soon. But we figured we would land in the eleventh century. What year is this?”

They exchanged as much information as possible, but there wasn’t nearly enough time. Mateo thought that all five of them would be sent to the future, based on what Danica had said about them being a whole party.

Unfortunately, Mateo was wrong. Midnight came and sent both Mateo and Leona to April 7, 2031. They were alone in the clearing. They waited for signs of life but nothing came. They remained there alone for a half hour, hoping to see Leona’s brother, Mateo’s mother, and her significant other. “Leona. We should call them. Danica gave us those phones, remember?”

“I have the phones,” Leona replied in a huff. “I have all of the phones. I forgot to pass them out.”

“Okay,” Mateo said gently. “That’s okay. We’ll find them.”

“Where?” Leona asked angrily. “We’re in the middle of nowhere Canada! Your mother was only familiar with this area back in God-knows-when. Other than that, we have no connection to this town. We don’t know anyone, and we don’t have money! It’s pretty cold here for April, so that’s not great! Our only chance is to get back to Kansas, wishin’ and hopin’ that your family thinks to check there every year, just in case, but that’s practically impossible!”

“Give me one of the phones.”

“I told you. I have all of them. There’s no one to call!”

“Would you just trust me?” She was not happy, but handed one of the phones over anyway. While she walked away to kick the dirt around, Mateo discovered that they had access to the present-day internet. It was a little tough to navigate. Not only was the phone probably from deep in the future, but the internet had changed in the last 17 years. “I found it. Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a hotel not twenty minutes from here by foot.”

“Do you remember me telling you the part about not having any money?”

“At the very least, we can get out of the cold. Hopefully we can work something out. If not, we’ll figure something else out.”

“Great plan, Mateo.”

“If we don’t try something, we’re going to die out here.”

The moonlight was hardly enough to see her face, but she was very obviously fuming. “Good point.” She began to walk away. “What are you waiting for?”

“It’s this way,” Mateo told her.

“Well why didn’t you say that?”

They walked out of the field, along some kind of body of water, past the high school, and through town. They ran a little bit of the way, not only to warm up, but because they were in a hurry to find a way out of their predicament. As soon as they walked into the inn, the man at the counter greeted them. “Welcome to Canada. Here is your itinerary.”

“Pardon?” Mateo asked, slightly out of breath.

“The jet leaves in one hour. A car is being brought around to automatically drive you to the base. From there, a state of the art aircraft will take you all the way to your final destination in San Diego. Shouldn’t take more than two hours.”

Leona took the itinerary. “What’s in San Diego?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have that information. But Mr. Reaver personally came out to ensure that you were taken care of. He said that you would be able to find the rest of your party there.”

Mateo looked up from the packet. “Our family must be down there. But why?”

“Let’s go outside,” Leona suggested.

“Wait, I have a few more questions.”

“Mateo. Outside. Now,” she insisted. She turned to the innkeeper. “Thank you very much, sir. Mr. Reaver will be very pleased with your service.” The innkeeper smiled as they walked out. Once they were out of earshot, Leona pulled him to the side. “We cannot get on that jet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t find this a little weird?”

“Nothing in my life has been normal for the last couple of weeks...decades.”

“Do you recognize the name Reaver?”

“I’ve heard it before. I can’t place it. We know him?”

“His company is the one who bought up the warehouse district where we had our surgeries. He’s been under a lot of suspicion. The authorities haven’t been able to find any evidence, but his business practices are shady at best. He’s responsible for a lot of unemployment, gentrification, and even a standard increase in the business day. He’s basically the anti-Google, and he’s just as powerful, if not more.”

“Why the hell would a guy like that have anything to do with us?” He started to look up Reaver Enterprises on his phone. “Theo is a pretty interesting kid, but I have a hard time believing he’s already networked this much. He’s not yet a teen—oh my God,” he interrupted himself

“What is it?”

He was looking at a picture of Horace Reaver. “This is him. This is the guy who tried to kill me when I jumped to the future.”

“He’s a salmon. That actually makes sense. It explains how he’s advanced technology so much.”

“What are we going to do? He probably has our family. We have to get them back, but you’re right, we cannot get on that jet.”

“This packet has the address of where we’re supposed to go once in San Diego. We have to find a way to get there on our own.” A car pulled up in front of them. The door opened, revealing the inside to be empty. “Run,” Leona ordered.

As they ran away from the inn, Leona looked through her phone for the nearest airport. The directions said that it was going to take almost an hour to walk to Lake Vernon, but they were able to wade through a stream and cross a highway to cut that down. They were exhausted when they arrived. Just as they were deciding whether they should try and figure out how to steal a plane, a woman approached them on the dock. “Can I help you?”

They froze, unsure of what they should say. They had already established that they had no money, but they also had no other form of compensation. They didn’t have a fancy watch to sell, or any special skills to trade. No one in their right mind would help two freaky people looking for a trip to San Diego at two in the morning. They say that honesty is the best policy, but Mateo decided to fudge the truth a little. “An evil business magnate kidnapped our family and is holding them hostage in San Diego. He says only he can get us there in time before he kills them at midnight since he stole our passports. We were going to steal your plane, because we’re desperate.”

“Are you talking about Horace Reaver?”

“We are,” Leona answered.

“Get in,” the woman said. “My brother died of cancer after working for Evil Enterprises.”

They got lucky. True to her word the woman, who refused to exchange names, flew them all the way to California. They were there many hours later than Reaver would have expected them, which could either be very good because he would have no idea where they were, or very bad because he may have decided to kill their family. The woman couldn’t be any more involved than she already was, so she immediately started getting ready to leave after dropping them off on Lower Otay Lake, having not filed a flight plan. The last thing she did was give Leona a few hundred dollars and a gun, saying that they might need it. Leona later said that it seemed very un-Canadian of her.

Mateo and Leona made their way towards the address written at the end of the packet, hoping that it wasn’t a diversion. It took quite a long time to get across town, especially since they were not quite in San Diego from the start. They had to find a cab that was not only driven by a human, but who would also accept Canadian bills. He appeared to be sympathetic to their troubles after they mentioned Reaver again. It would appear that everyone hated him, but no one was capable of defeating him. Mateo couldn’t help but feel like doing just that was exactly the reason he was turned into a time traveler, despite the Delegator’s claim that he had no official job.

They found Aura, Samsonite, and little Theo chained up in the middle of an abandoned warehouse, drained of energy and literally starving. They weren’t even under guard. After getting some food and freshening up, they posited that Reaver was only ever interested in killing Mateo and Leona, and that the jet was engineered to blow up or crash. The only reason he was keeping the other three hostage was so that they wouldn’t be able to make contact. Why he bothered giving them the address was the only thing that truly could not be explained.

Mateo wanted to finally catch up with his long-lost mother, but he fell asleep while they were talking. By the time he woke up next to Leona in the motel bed, it was noon of the following year.

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Crossed Off: Locked In (Part I)

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Very few people were aware of Starla Wakefield’s ability to possess the bodies of other people. She first discovered her gift at a very early age, but instinctively knew that she had to keep quiet about it. The first person to find out about it was her best friend, Alec who was also the first person with whom she switched bodies. He was a couple years older, and was always there to help her with homework and bullies. While she was freaking out about being in the body of another person, he seemed pretty happy about it. He liked to watch movies about superheroes, and saw this as a chance to live one out in real life. He insisted that she would one day grow up and become a superhero herself, and that he would be her sidekick.
Together, they learned how to use her skills both accurately and responsibly. They discovered that she was capable of switching places with anyone in the entire world. She could also possess them without allowing them access to her body; she could see through their eyes while they remained in control, so that they were completely unaware that anything was different; and she could share a body with the owner. After some research in the library, Alec decided to nickname her Avatar, based on the idea that she could cross over from her place to another. Over the years, she collected seven other confidants from around the world, mostly accidentally while testing her limits. She spent her time learning about other cultures, and going on instant vacations. Her favorite switch, however, was in the body of a retired conservationist who spent his days interacting with the feral horses of Cumberland Island, which was only a few miles away.

Soon after Alec headed off for college, Starla began to show unusual symptoms that were almost certainly the result of her ability. She started losing control of her own motor functions. At first, her limbs slouched for minutes at a time, but she was eventually able to regain control. But things were getting worse. The doctors had no clue what was happening with her. After all, how could they? They tested for a stroke, multiple sclerosis, and ALS, among a few other things. Despite showing a number of common symptoms, the neurological degeneration simply was not there. Her brain was sending signals throughout her body, but they were somehow blank messages. There was some kind of loss in translation during transit that current medical technology could not explain.

After several months, Starla found herself forced to remain in a wheelchair. For the most part, she had retained control of her upper body, but her legs didn’t move at all. Every second she was left alone she took the opportunity to take over the body of someone somewhere else who happened to be asleep at the time. That was the only time she had when she could move around freely. She felt bad that these people would wake up the next morning feeling fully unrested, but she had given in to the dark side of her personality. Her worldwide confidants offered to give her temporary control of their bodies, but she felt even worse about that since she knew them.

Starla couldn’t move all of her body but, unlike a paraplegic, she could still feel everything. Sitting in the chair all day was extremely uncomfortable. One day, when she was visiting Alec in his dorm room, his lovely roommate, Kathleen let herself be late for class so that she could lift Starla into the bed. Once she left, they were able to talk freely. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I’m going to die.”

“Don’t say that. This doesn’t have to end like that, or even be permanent. But you have to stop what you’re doing. I have a theory that the body cannot exist too long without the mind. Switching consciousnesses is probably okay, but if you leave the brain without any purpose, then I imagine it starts to decay.”

“I don’t mean that this is going to kill me. That’s the problem. It’s probably not. I’m going to be stuck like this forever, and my only chance would be to possess some poor schmuck permanently. I know myself, Alec. Without you, I would have abused this in so many ways.”

“I do not agree.”

“Well, you would be wrong. You said it yourself, I need to stop taking over sleeping people’s bodies. I can’t help myself. It’s far too tempting. The only way out of this is to take myself out of the equation.”

“And how exactly would you do that,” Alec asked. “Sorry to be blunt, but you can barely lift a toothpick. How would you lift a gun, or a knife, or even a bottle of pills?”

Fortunately, Starla could still shrug, so she shrugged. “I could make someone else do it for me, literally.”

He nodded, pretending to see her point. “And what if you die while still in this person’s body? Hmm? What if you get stuck there? What if the only reason you can switch bodies is because this body is still a valid origin? Maybe you wouldn’t be taking yourself out of the equation; you would just be killing the one thing that keeps you in control of your ability. Without it, you could doom that person to spend the rest of their life unable to actually live it.”

“I’ll have him stab or shoot me in the chest. That will give me plenty of time to jump back before getting stranded.”

“Okay, but then you’ve just made that person a murderer. There he is, standing over the body of a young handicapped girl. Amnesia doesn’t hold up well in court. They would be put on trial. If they’re bad, they’ll probably do something stupid and get caught. If they’re good, they’ll turn themselves in because they’ll assume they were the culprit, just like everybody else will.”

“You said something about pills?”

“I said something hoping that you would give up this quest based on logic. I see now that that tactic is not going to work on you. So let’s switch to your heart, which is hopefully not as damaged as your crazy nutso cuckoo brain. What about me? I love you, and you’re just going to leave me?”

“I don’t see any other choice.”

“I just gave you a choice. Stay put,” Alec suggested. “Don’t use it at all. It might mean years, or it may only take a few weeks, but your condition may go away. You don’t have a disease. There’s nothing wrong with your tissue. There’s no reason this isn’t reversible. Perhaps you haven’t gotten better because you haven’t given yourself the chance.”

“I’m sick of arguing about this.”

“So am I.”

“Let’s talk about something light. Your new roommate seems nice.”

“Kathleen is great, yeah.”

They sat in awkward silence before Starla slumped over. Alec lifted her eyelids and checked for the signs of body switching, but found her pupils to be normal. She had just fallen asleep, so he took the opportunity to go down the hall to access the payphone. “Hello, Tristan,” he said into the mouthpiece. “No, Kathleen’s fine. Thanks for putting us together. I don’t think I could have handled another semester with the horrible guy the school paired me with.—No, I’m calling because Starla is having bad thoughts. I have a break coming up, and I was hoping to come up to Kansas City to meet you. I think seeing one of her confidants in person will be good for her, and you’re obviously the closest one.—Yes.—Yeah, that would be the plan.—Okay, I’ll figure out how I can convince her. Thanks, bye.”

Little did Alec know that Starla often accidentally slipped into his mind when she fell asleep. She had heard every word.

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