"I know, I know already!" Tori snapped at the sound of the knock on her door frame behind her. Probably totally unfairly, but with midterms coming up, she was more than a little stressed out and it wasn't like this paper on 'Class Structure in Elizabethan England' was going to write itself when she was off training. It was absolutely absurd for Professor Psyche to stick to the training schedule in the middle of cram week, and if Tori wound up taking a little of her stresses out on whoever it was that was standing outside her room, well...she didn't have the reputation as the rebellious one on the team for nothing. "I'll be down there in five minutes! Jeez, do you get extra credit for running the Prof's errands or something?"
Setting her pencil down, she rolled off the bed and almost immediately felt a little bit bad. Voltaic was standing there, a slightly hurt expression on his face, and he was one of the few members of the Utopians Tori actually got along with. He had cool taste in music, for one thing, and that insulation suit he had to wear to keep his electrical powers under control made him look kind of like Marilyn Manson. (Only cooler, since as far as Tori was concerned, Marilyn Manson was
so
over. It was all about Rasputina and Crüxshadows nowadays.) "Um...Utopia...I mean, um, Tori?"
She had to have put him off his game a little, if he actually started calling her 'Utopia Lass'. The only people who still used that lame codename were the Professor and Radiance, and Radiance was a stuck-up little prig with a bug so far up her butt you could see it when she yawned. Tori gave a sheepish grin, trying to put Voltaic at his ease a little. "Sorry," she said. "This paper's totally stressing me out, didn't mean to bite your head off." He seemed to relax a little, but she could tell he was still a little wigged. He got wigged easily, she knew. Having to wear that stupid rubber suit everywhere made him a total social outcast. (Which was fine by her. Social outcasts were always the coolest people.) "You came from the Prof, right?"
"Um, yeah. She said that she had to go on a mission with the Alpha Team, and that she was sorry, but your special session for this afternoon was canceled." Voltaic paused, clearly torn between curiosity and shyness. After a few moments, curiosity won. "What special sessions? I mean, I don't want to, y'know, pry, but...I didn't know you had special training sessions."
Tori shrugged. "It's not a big deal or anything. It's just that I've got some extra powers that kind of require special handling, and Professor Psyche's been working with me one on one to help me out with them. It's no big." Tori wondered why she was being so secretive about it, really. Professor Psyche had never explicitly told her not to talk about her powers or the sessions; in fact, she'd always said Tori should open up more to her teammates. Which she'd do, if they weren't a bunch of total dorks. Starheart used to live on a farm, for Pete's sake! What was she supposed to open up to him about, baling hay?
Voltaic frowned. "What sort of powers? I mean, um...sorry, I shouldn't...I'll let you get back to your paper."
Tori held up a hand. "No, it's cool. I don't mind talking about it." Not with Voltaic, at least. "When I first learned I was a nextstep, back when I was thirteen, I was...it wasn't just telekinetic powers that manifested. I was a telepath, too, like the Professor. But I couldn't cope. I didn't know how to shut anything out, it was just like this endless roar in my head. I couldn't even hear myself think..." Tori shuddered. She was a little surprised at how intensely the memory could still affect her, five years later. She tried to compose herself, get back her usual nonchalant chic, but she could tell from the look on Voltaic's face that she hadn't succeeded.
"I kind of know how you feel," he said. "Before the Professor found me and designed this suit for me, I almost killed some kid. It's terrifying, having all that power and not being able to control it."
"I..." Tori felt the memories clutch at her, memories of her stay in a mental institution care of parents who couldn't even begin to understand what their daughter was going through. But the institution had been just as crowded as the outside world--it had been even worse, 'hearing' the shrieking babble of schizophrenics and sociopaths in her head, madness crowding in on her from every side until she thought she'd go mad herself...
Tori abruptly decided that was enough opening up for one day. "Yeah," she said, with forced casualness. "It was kind of freaky. Anyhow, the Prof locked down my telepathic powers completely, put in mental blocks that keep me from accessing them. And once a week, she and I have a session where she takes the blocks down and teaches me how to control my powers, until I'm ready to handle them all on my own."
Voltaic shrugged. "So when's that going to be?"
Tori shrugged back. "She won't say. Personally, I think she's probably just being over-cautious. Y'know, like she still thinks we're a bunch of kids. She barely ever lets us go on missions, she makes us study like we're really in prep school instead of just putting the information in our heads, which is totally hypocritical because how did she learn all the stuff she's teaching us? Yeah, she totally stole it from a bunch of experts in a bunch of different fields, that's how. She...um..." Tori furrowed her brow, her train of thought suddenly derailed. "Sorry, did you hear that?"
Voltaic looked around. "I didn't hear anything," he said uncertainly.
Tori said, "You sure? Sort of a thrumming noise, like...like a..." She struggled to find an analogy, and finally gave up. "Anyhow, if it was up to the Professor, she'd probably unlock my telepathy when I was an antique like her. How old is she, anyway? Forty? Forty-five? I..." Tori trailed off, looking around again. "Can you...are you sure you don't hear that? It's getting louder now."
Voltaic shook his head apologetically. "Sorry, I don't hear it."
