Charlotte Powers 1: Power Down (17 page)

"Lotte!"

"Dad?"

Not just him. Mum too, and Daniel—who'd just finished disarming the master detonator for the explosives, I later learned. Much later, because just after saying "Dad?" everything finally caught up to me and I collapsed on to the grass.

xx48.12.06 | 13:04 | Monday

I got tired writing all of that yesterday, and it seemed an appropriate place to stop in any case. I'm recovering now, still in Emerald Hill, in the local hospital. It's pretty nice, actually, I have my own room and the staff are lovely, and right now I feel like I deserve a rest.

It turned out C2 did her part of things
brilliantly
. She didn't even have to shoot anyone, although she said she threatened a couple of technicians with the gun. I imagine she could be quite intimidating, holding a gun and talking in that husky, flat way of hers, probably saying something like "I cannot tell if you are afraid right now. Are you?", brr! Anyway, she got to the girl and eventually managed to free her, it was more complicated than just untying her (not that she WAS tied up but you know), but C2 figured it out (of course). The girl's name is Alice. She's fourteen years old and possesses the power of 'reverse empathy'. She's able to project her own emotions on to other people. Normally this kind of power would be a 'one person at a time' sort of thing, but when connected to a massive transmitter with a polydium core ... they used drugs to enhance her powers and to control her moods, as well as twisting her power to create a kind of hypnotic control over susceptible minds. Apparently they let her 'rest' during the weekends, although all that meant was they dosed her up on sleeping drugs—which also had the effect of making the whole town (except C2) sleepy and unlikely to do any investigating. Horrible, right? And SO sneaky, just what you'd expect from nasty ol' supervillains. Poor Alice. As you might expect, she's more than a little traumatised, she was kept in that facility for almost a year. C2's been spending time with her, and Mum and Dad got in contact with Gaia, who's an old friend of theirs from their adventuring days. She has the power of 'universal empathy'. It's one of those vague, kind of abstract powers that never gets properly defined, but (among other things) it allows the connection of one mind to another. Psychic healing can do amazing things. I hope it's enough.

Freeing Alice also had another benefit, one I never even considered; it stopped the communication block over this whole area. Apparently it was psychic in nature, a side-effect of the broadcast. This let Mum and Dad (who Daniel had just managed to contact) immediately pinpoint my exact location at Emerald Hill Academy (my Opal has a unique signature, even though it was pretty much destroyed because of Veronica's stupid flame attacks it was still putting out a signal). Like Daniel said, they've (naturally) been worried sick and doing everything they could to find me. It was actually Daniel who had the idea of scanning for areas of 'phase-interference' which is an indication of teleportation apparently? Teleporters aren't SO common and it didn't take long for them to find all the possible places I could've ended up—except because of the psychic broadcasts here the 'phase-interference' was interfered with and made undetectable. I guess because Daniel actually CAME here and managed to get in contact with them it didn't make much difference, but on the other hand maybe taking that psychic barrier down meant they got here a few minutes earlier than they otherwise would have. Those few minutes might have saved my life—saved a lot of lives, considering Daniel's defusing of the incendiary explosives—Mum's actually better at demolitions than he is, but because he can go out-of-phase there's considerably less risk in the case of an accidental explosion. (They picked him up on the way here, in case you were wondering, he'd actually managed to drive the truck into a ditch.) They came here in Mum's invisible jet (like Daniel said it's not actually invisible, but this has become a Family Joke now) (also like he said it's not even a jet, but more on that in a bit), touched down outside the school, fought their way to the gym, got everyone OUT of the gym, defused the explosives, stopped Segregation (pretty fancy name for 'burn to death everyone who didn't qualify for so-called advanced self-improvement') and saved the day. Well, I guess
technically
it was me and C2 who ACTUALLY saved the day, but I think my family also deserves a
little
credit.

C2 has visited me every day. It turns out she DOES have a power, but it's not psychic shielding. It's being the best most wonderful friend in the whole world, being amazingly intelligent and caring and strong, and being able to make the right choice even when some idiot is saying all the wrong things to you. And also psychic shielding. Gaia said that C2's 'condition' is made worse by her power, that the psychic shielding blocks out ALL psychic energy, even the normal energy everyone sends out as part of their emotional state. She offered to try to fix it, but C2 politely refused.

"I am who I am," she said. "If I changed, then who would I be? I am the person who Charlotte thought worthy to be her friend. I don't want to be anyone else."

Charlotte Crescent: Best. Friend. Ever.

By the way, I was wrong about something. About a lot of things, actually, but this is the big one. It ties into something I've been wrong about my entire life, something even my family didn't realise until very recently.

Daniel's teleporter worked perfectly. But on the way to Green Grove I was picked up by the teleportation receiver here. It's part of that massive transmitter (actually a transmitter-receiver, as it turns out). But my 'phase-shadow' wasn't ripped from me or anything like that. I arrived as completely as I left.

The reason I lost my powers is that
they weren't my powers
. They never were. I don't have three powers, I only have one; the ability to
mimic the powers of others
. But only while I'm near them, once I get too far away I lose them quickly, usually within an hour. (I've already done some tests, mostly with Daniel.) That's why my head always felt clear when I was around C2, because I was mimicking her psychic shielding. That's why my palms always tingled when Veronica was near, because I was mimicking her ability to summon flame from her hands—and also the reason I wasn't burnt by her flames, apparently one of her secondary abilities is 'heat resistance'. Most pertinently, that's why I always thought I had the abilities of the rest of my family, and that's why my powers came back when they did, because my family were here and near enough for my power to grab on to theirs or however it actually works. Daniel says my 'power aura' must be sticky and also bendy (these are technical terms you understand), kind of like a mirror made of silly putty. His explanation, not mine, don't blame me if it doesn't make any sense to you.

When I first realised that 'mimicry' was my power (ugh fine okay Daniel helped me figure it out, stupid, STUPID honesty curse) my immediate thought was, oh hey, I could've been throwing stuff around like The Head, I could have been flaming-on like Veronica, what a wasted opportunity! But, you know, maybe next time. At least I used Ray's power against him, or I think I probably did anyway. Maybe I would've hit him where I hit him even if I hadn't been copying his power, but it kind of adds a little extra sweetness to it all if I used his own power to defeat him, don't you think? He recovered, apparently, and was taken away by some military agency or another—one of their guys was here yesterday, not to visit me but to talk to Mum and Dad who WERE here visiting me, I saw him through the doorway saluting them REALLY respectfully. I didn't know my parents were ever involved with the military, but I guess it makes sense, they were pretty high-profile superheroes back in their day.

Anyway, enough about stupid horrible boys and mysterious government agencies, back to me and my power. I'm actually still getting used to the whole idea of 'mimicry'. This is a big change, you know? I've never even HEARD of a person with this kind of power, and I thought I knew them all. It's kind of a weird ability, but at the same time pretty cool. It'll keep me on my toes, at least! The only problem is that I STILL can't think of a name. The Mimic? Chameleon? Copy-Lass? Slate? (Like 'Blank Slate'.) How about just Blank? Or Blanc. Or ... Canvas?

Maybe I just suck at coming up with superhero names. Oh well. I'm sure I'll think of one eventually. The main thing is that I know what my power is now. I know who I am. I'm Charlotte Powers, most
definitely
a superhero. Maybe not the greatest superhero in the world, but I think I'm off to a pretty good start. I mean, I won, didn't I? Okay fine so Veronica and The Head and pretty much everyone at the facility got away (some kind of mass-teleportation that totally burnt out the transmitter-receiver), so we still don't know exactly
what
the 'advanced self-improvement program' was and all of the students involved have disappeared (thankfully C2's friends weren't a part of it, they came to visit me with her yesterday and, well, they're still weird even without the whole mood alteration thing happening, but at least they made an effort).

I've lost my point now. Oh right, winning. So I suppose it wasn't a total victory, but at least we managed to save this town from being controlled—and more importantly, we saved Alice from doing the controlling. We shut down the bad guy's facility and drove them out of town. Most of the people here aren't actually that grateful, though, especially the students, but that's probably just because most of them don't even realise anything happened. Quite a few of them are pretty angry at me for slapping Veronica, there was DEFINITELY some mood-altering going on there for her to be at ALL popular.

Still, some of the students recognised her for what she was, and when I slapped her in front of everyone they were the ones who were silently cheering. Some of them have visited me here, guess what? I'm invited to a party tonight! A real party with chips and dip and music and dancing! I'm REALLY looking forward to it, especially since C2 got my guitar back for me (have I mentioned how much of a sweetheart she is? Probably not enough; C2 is SUCH a sweetheart). I'm going to take it with me—and no, I'm NOT going to bust out a killer solo while flipping off a wall. I'm just going to play some music if I feel like it, and if people feel like listening. I have learnt to be 'subdued'. My lesson has been mastered.

One thing you might be wondering about is how Mum and Dad got here so quickly, even with Mum's invisible jet. Like I (and Daniel) said before, it's neither invisible nor a jet. It is, in fact,
technically
a spaceship. Why do my family need a spaceship, you ask? Well, I answer, it's because apparently we live on the moon. In a big bubble. Made of super-glass. With a simulated environment and fake sun, apparently it's just a contained plasma field in a super-glass globe, can you believe that? Even the SUN wasn't real! And could I just point out, here, that my second-greatest fear in the world since I was four years old is getting blown out into the vacuum of space and exploding? Thanks, parents, for making my nightmare so close to a reality. And talk about ostentatious! As if a secret volcano base wasn't enough already, now it turns out that it's a secret volcano base
on the moon
. No wonder getting potatoes was so difficult.

Speaking of food, I figured out something I could do for C2. It's not really much, just a tiny thing really, but since I'm laid up in bed (mostly by choice right now, but still) of course Mum fussed around me and asked me if she could get me anything. I just had one request. It turned out to be
slightly
inconvenient to fulfil, and probably the pears that the fruit bowl beside my bed is now filled with are the most expensive pears in the world considering the spaceship fuel burnt getting them, but the look on C2's face when she saw them was worth it. And you know what? They ARE delicious! I think I like them almost as much as mangoes! Know something else? C2 likes mangoes now almost as much as she likes pears!

Oh, by the way, the whole 'big game' was actually a big con. The rival team weren't from another school at all, they were just appropriately-aged minions of the unseen Big Bad behind all of this. And that secret room underneath the disused building? NO LONGER THERE. It wasn't just a room either, judging from the remains I'm told it was more like a small underground complex—but it's all gone now, taken away somewhere else by some kind of emergency teleportation system, leaving the building above to just kind of collapse into the space it left. The admin building was destroyed too, taking all the computers and records at the school with it. As for the facility, the caverns beneath were exploded and the whole thing fell in on itself. (Cue panicky moment of unnecessary guilt from me because of the technicians I left unconscious in there; C2 said they were all teleported out before the facility was destroyed. Phew.)

So I guess there are lots of mysteries as yet unsolved. Lots to investigate, lots to follow up on. Because Mum and Dad have already found evidence pointing to other schools being 'used' like this one; suspicious fires, mass-disappearances, lots of seemingly non-super events that when taken together point to supervillainry of the highest and most dangerous order; supervillains who have learnt to take the long view of things, who have learnt the value of subtlety. It turns out Mum and Dad were right. This isn't the same world they adventured in. It's a new world, a more dangerous world, a world of hidden threats and insidious plans—threats and plans that I'm going to uncover, threats and plans that I, Charlotte Powers, am going to put a very definite stop to. Because Dad was right about something else: where there are villains, there you will also find heroes—whether they're 'super' or not.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm feeling up to discharging myself. Before I save the world, I have a party to attend.