The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

Maya Patel is a third-year, a heavy-set Indian girl. She speaks only when absolutely necessary. Ask her a question and the image of the answer appears in your head, stamped on your thoughts like a photo negative. Neal Byrd, pale and spotted with acne, doesn’t talk to anyone either. He goes directly to a pile of scrap metal in the corner and begins spinning a piece of rebar by twirling his finger at it, but Maya snaps at him and he lets it clatter to the ground. Jovan Markovic is a second-year and can make slightly amorphous shapes out of water.

Jonathan Mazur comes in with Hayden Cohen. Half the kids at Bishop believe Jonathan and Hayden are not just fucking, not just dating, but destined to be one of those star couples you see in magazines. He’s good-looking in an outdated way. Seventies hot, like a low-rent Jim Morrison. Long, wavy hair, bronze skin, and thick lips. In the cleft of his Paisley silk shirt, a triangle of bright orange throbs in time with his pulse. He has to wear heavy turtleneck sweaters whenever he leaves the academy to cover it up.

And there’s Hayden, Carrie’s roommate for the last three years. It makes sense that someone who could look like anyone would look like Hayden. Their beauty comes off as effortless because it’s the result of so much effort. Hayden’s ability is constantly engaged for the purpose of, as Hayden puts it, keeping up appearances. Hayden winks at Carrie as they come in. Hayden can always find Carrie no matter how far down Carrie tries to hide.

Once the whole class is seated, Sarah arrives. Behind her, the reporter and his kid, who’s got Sarah’s dog, Cortex, trotting along with her. When Carrie first got here, she assumed Cortex was a service animal: one of those dogs that can smell an oncoming seizure or an emotional support dog. Waylon says the dog’s like an external hard drive but then won’t explain what the fuck that even means. It follows Sarah everywhere. The kid is vigorously petting Cortex, which none of the students are allowed to do.

The reporter is not that impressive. Carrie and Miquel had tried to imagine him, thinking he’d look either like Robert Redford in All the President’s Men or like Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men. The latter was closer to the mark. He looks like he used to be muscled and let himself go. Dad bod, thinks Carrie, even though it’s one of those awful phrases adults come up with to sound like teenagers. She tries to guess his age, but mostly what she notices is that he looks stunned, as if he’s been smacked. She thinks of reporters as having a keen eye, but Avi’s eyes are wide, trying to take in everything at once but unable to. When he smiles, it’s too taut to be genuine.

Sarah calls the class to attention with a golf clap. She comes from money, too, although she doesn’t reek of it the way the Helmses do. Sometimes she comes off like the matron at a finishing school.

“Today we have some guests,” she says. “This is Avi Hirsch; he’s a reporter with…” She turns and looks at Avi.

“Freelance,” Avi says. Sarah looks at him like he’s used the soup spoon to stir his tea. She’s such a priss.

“He’s a noted reporter,” she says, putting weight on the word to see if it holds up. Unsatisfied, she adds, “Award-winning.” This pleases her, and she moves on. “As you know, there’s been an initiative to go public about the existence of people like us. Mr. Hirsch has been asked to help us with that. He may write about the academy, but he won’t be revealing any personal details of students or any details about its location. We want you all to know that you’re safe here.”

Carrie lets out an annoyed burst of breath loudly enough that Lynette looks over at where she is to see where the sound came from. Bishop goes through all this effort to instill pride in who they are, to make the students feel good about being different, and then hides them from the whole world. It’s hypocritical bullshit, done in the name of safety.

“And this,” says Sarah, “is Avi’s daughter, Emmeline. Emmeline is a Resonant, which some of you may have sensed. She’s new to all this, so I hope you’ll welcome her and make her feel that she’s found a home here.”

The students, who nodded and mumbled when Avi Hirsch was introduced, all say warm and cheerful hellos to Emmeline. She smiles back, then shrinks into Avi’s side. She’s so young. Carrie has never heard of someone that young resonating. She has dark skin and amazing corkscrew curls, and her eyes are like pale ice. From behind her father’s leg, she looks right at Carrie. Emmeline holds eye contact with her, then hides again.

“Today we have presentations,” Sarah explains to Avi and Emmeline. “In this class, we work on ways to use our abilities to express creativity. So much of what we do at the academy involves teaching essentials.” Sarah puts the word in air quotes and rolls her eyes. “Control. Defense. But it’s important that students engage their full selves not as Resonants but as human beings.”

This line is so overused, it’s become a joke among the students. Any time students use their ability to do something they could just as easily have done without it, someone else will rag on them for failing to engage their full selves.

“Now,” Sarah says. “I think Hayden and Jonathan have a song for us.”

Hayden and Jonathan go to the center of the room to a smattering of applause. Jonathan intently tunes while Hayden adjusts the mic. When Hayden and Carrie first met, Hayden was into pure pop music, and their interest in being a singer had as much to do with fame as it did with