I was glad to finally have some time to myself. The tour of my new school had certainly been interesting but also a bit overwhelming. I needed some time to process everything. It had been a crazy few days.
Everything had been moving so quickly. After hearing the pitch from the "recruiters" from a school for "special" young adults with certain gifts and abilities, I think my parents mostly felt relief. I know I must have become a handful, more than they bargained for. Still it kind of hurt that they jumped so quickly at the chance to send me off. How the recruiters found me or knew about my abilities, my parents never asked. I would have liked to know. I had only discovered these abilities myself a few years ago and I tried hard to prevent anyone else from discovering them too; maybe I had failed at that.
"Well, Becca? What do you think?" my mom asked after the pitch. I knew it didn't matter really what I thought. They were offering a free private education that would otherwise be out of reach for my family. I had just turned 18, graduated high school, and even the local community college seemed like a financial stress. The idea that I would gain better control of my abilities and maybe even use them for good no doubt appealed to my parents, who had always seemed just a bit frightened of me after they first discovered what I could do.
I can create copies of myself. Clones. Whatever you want to call them. I really can't explain how it works better than just, I concentrate for a bit, and suddenly there is another version of me, an exact duplicate, could be my twin, next to me. Same height, hair, eyes, clothes, a perfect copy.
The copies had turned out to be incredibly useful. I found that as long as one of us went to school, I could stay home watching tv, go to the mall, get a manicure, whatever. Homework took next to no time because I could divide up assignments and tackle them simultaneously, all while making dinner. Despite the benefits, the first time I showed my parents their reaction made it clear that revealing what I could do to people who weren't biologically predisposed to love me would probably be somewhere between frightened and horrified. So I never let more than one copy leave the house.
While leaving everything I knew behind for some cloistered boarding school didn't exactly sound fun, there was certainly a part of me that was interested in being around people who I wouldn't need to hide my abilities from. To maybe feel a little acceptance.
"I don't know. It could be alright I guess."
I was given two days to pack my things and make arrangements. I didn't feel this was entirely enough time to say goodbye to my old life but the recruiters said it was best to give it the band-aid treatment and rip it off quickly. It also gave less time for unwanted questions to come up.
My first day I was briefly shown to my room to drop off my things. Like the rest of the school, it seemed pretty nice. Definitely an old money, ivy league feel to the place, even if it completely lacked name recognition (intentionally so as I was reminded). They told me all new students get a room to themselves for the first couple weeks to help them adjust to their new environment. At first I was a bit disappointed because socializing with the other "special" students was a big reason I came to the school. After my tour though, I appreciated my own space.
The school had a lot of traditional looking classrooms, just way better outfitted than anything I'd seen before. There were also some pretty big differences from a regular school like intense looking laboratories and "training" rooms where students tested their abilities against what looked like sometimes very dangerous challenges. But the biggest shock was the other students, they were all shapes and sizes. Some glowed gently, others looked like they were on fire. I saw some doing incredible feats of strength, another was flying, I even saw someone with fur. The range of abilities was staggering. All the while my guide was asking me about my abilities.
"Are you aware of what your copies are doing when they are away from you? Can you communicate with them over long distances? Any telepathy?"
"No, nothing like that. Once they leave they go off and do their thing. But I still usually know what they are doing because, well, it's what I would be doing.''
"And when these copies rejoin you?"
"Generally, all their memories and experiences get combined. I might remember what a copy was doing the way you remember what your breakfast was like this morning. I just remember two breakfasts instead of one."
"I see. What about physical changes. If a copy is injured, is there a healing factor when it's reunited?"
"Well, first of all, the copy is still me, so don't call me 'it' please. A copy isn't like, some shell of me or something. And to answer your question, generally no. I mean I've never like broken a bone or something to see what happens. But I've had a sunburn when reunited after one of me stayed home indoors all day. But I've also gotten to keep a manicure only one of me got, so I take the good with the bad."