The Ables (3 page)

“There are more than two thousand known super powers, and most of them aren’t even very spectacular or exciting. Like exceptional abilities in the area of math, science, and engineering. These heroes can do things on a whole other level from even the most intelligent non-empowered humans, able to do with their brains the kinds of things most folks need a computer for. Some custodians just have exceptional hand-eye coordination or hyper-fast reflexes. The flashiest powers—X-ray vision or invisibility—those are actually more rare than you might think. Our family was pretty lucky. Blessed with good genes, I guess.”

I had been pretty patient so far, but it was killing me. “What’s
my
super power, Dad?”

“Why, it’s the same as mine, Phillip. Telekinesis.”

Telekinesis. Telekinesis. What the heck is telekinesis?
I raced frantically through the various storage cubbies in my brain, rummaging around for some previous memory or mention of that word, finding nothing. But I knew one thing: it sounded lame.

“What’s telekinesis?” I asked nervously, assuming it was somehow related to the phone or the TV. I braced myself for the worst.
Please don’t tell me I’m a human telephone.
This could only happen to me. Only I could find out at twelve that I have super powers but then have them turn out to be something useless, like the ability to send radio signals.

“Telekinesis is the ability to move things with your mind.” He hesitated, letting the definition sink in. “Just by thinking it, you could potentially send this picnic table hurtling across the cornfield.”

“I’m pretty sure I can’t move things with my mind, Dad. I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’ve tried it before, like a thousand times.” I was dejected. What kid hasn’t tried to move something with his brain? And like every other kid, I had never even sniffed success.

“Of course you tried it. Every kid ever born has tried it. You just couldn’t do it because your powers weren’t ready yet. You know that birds and bees stuff? I’m sure they talked to you in school about … you know … maturing and the body changes and—”

“Dad! Yes, okay? Geez.”

“Well, it’s kind of the same way with your powers. Most boys get their powers around eleven or twelve. You probably haven’t tried to move something with your mind for several years. You probably gave up on it a long time ago, right?”

I nodded, realizing he was correct.

“You just have to overcome a few obstacles,” he tacked on.

I wasn’t sure what that meant. “Like … an initiation?”

He chuckled some more. “No, son. Like your blindness.” He leaned in closer. “You see, telekinesis relies on your ability to know the intimate details of an object’s dimensions in order for you to be able to move it mentally. Proximity—how far you are away from the object—plays a role as well, but it’s not as important as how accurately you can judge its weight and length and shape. Typically, we telekinetics use our eyes to gain that knowledge of an object … to know every curve and corner. I could pick out an ear of corn over there in the field and have it in my hands at a moment’s notice, but only because I can see it.”

“Dad, you have to do it!” I knew he was going to do it before I even asked. He may be a dork, but I have the coolest dad in the world.

The late afternoon breeze had tempered, and it was as quiet as you would think a farm in the middle of nowhere would be. The only sound I heard was the sound of the vegetable smacking the palm of his hand. He reached over and opened my hand, and placed the corn in my grasp. I felt it up and down and was instantly sure that my father had just blown my mind. I was dumfounded. Speechless.

Up until now, this was an entirely academic conversation. Theoretical and abstract. Now, though, it just got real in a hurry.

Sensing my growing awe, Dad continued. “If you could see it—every kernel, every piece of husk and string—you’d have a mental picture good enough for your powers to send it flying back across the field. But even without your sight, your powers are still there. The more familiar you are with an object, the easier it will be for you to move it. You can acquire with touch, over time, what another telekinetic could see with his eyes in an instant. Put down the corn and get your phone out.”

I did as instructed, setting the corn on the table beside me. I had a pretty swanky mobile device that had games and Internet and a lot of other cool features a blind kid couldn’t use, but it also had speech-to-text. I may not have been glued to it like most kids, but I’d used it enough to be very familiar with it.

“Roll it around in your hand. You’ve that thing for nearly two years, Phillip. You know what all the buttons do, where they’re located. You know how heavy the phone is and its shape.”

He was right. It was like an extension of my hand.

“Now place it on the bench between your feet.” Something in his tone changed as he shifted from father into trainer. This was one of those moments where I don’t realize the significance until much later.

Again, I did as he asked.

“Pay special attention to where the phone is on the bench—feel for your feet and the edges of the wood. Make sure you know which way the phone is facing and pointing.” His voice was calm and smooth, like a meditation.

I felt around, using my fingers to get a “picture” of the phone’s position. Dad kept on guiding me. “Hold your right hand out over the area where the phone is, straight out in front of you.” I did.

We both sat there for a moment, anxious or excited or both. I know I was both.

“Now, I want you to pull up your mental picture of the phone. Remember how it’s positioned. It hasn’t moved. Everything about it is exactly the way you left it, just two feet below your hand. Concentrate on that image, son.”

I wasn’t about to start questioning him now. The man had just tractor-beamed an ear of corn into his hand, for crying out loud. I tried to focus on the phone … how it had felt in my hand … how it must have looked sitting down there on the picnic table bench. I tried to clear my mind of anything else.

“Now will it into your hand, son. I want you to silently picture the phone zipping up from the bench and into your hand.” He kept encouraging me while I kept trying to figure out how to do what he was telling me to do. “Visualize it happening, and try and make it happen with just your focus alone. Just keep visualizing it over and over again.”

I tried. I tried as hard as I knew how. But I had never moved something with my brain before. I didn’t know how to flip that switch.

“You can do it, Phillip. I believe in you.”

Several moments passed with me exerting every kind of willpower I could muster, but the phone refused to budge. I thought I felt a headache coming on. I began to realize that this was all a waste of time. My parents were wrong about me. I didn’t have super powers. I was just another normal, boring blind kid.

I gave up and felt his hand gently patting my shoulder almost instantly. I geared myself up for a pep talk about how it’s going to take time and we’ll keep trying—you know, all those encouraging things fathers usually say to their sons.

Instead, I got something else. “We’re going to stay here as long as it takes for you to get it.” He wasn’t saying it in a mean way. This wasn’t that threatening parental tone that the words might suggest. His voice was actually still completely soothing and loving. “Because I know you can do it.”

I see,
I thought.
He still thinks I just need to try harder
. I figured I would need to tell him just how hopeless I thought this was. “Dad, I really focused hard and the thing didn’t budge. I don’t want to disappoint you, but I really don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. How do you even know I have this power anyway?”

“Well, I know you have this power for a few reasons. First, it’s genetic. We knew from the day you were born what your power was going to be. Every known power has a distinct genetic signature; it’s in your DNA.

“Second, I know you have this power because I just know it. I feel it deep within me. You are my son, and when I look at you … I just know.

“And, third—and perhaps most importantly—I know you have this power because you’ve used it before, and I saw you do it.”

I had already believed him after the first point. It was pretty good. DNA is pretty strong evidence, from what little I knew about science. The second point was just sentimentality, which was fine with me, and it did make me feel good to hear him say it with such a sense of pride. But the third point threw me for a loop. You’d think I would remember using my own super power, particularly since I didn’t know I had it until today.

Dad could sense my confusion. “Two mornings ago I saw you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock by waving at it. From the far side of the bed.” He paused briefly. “You weren’t fully awake, sleeping soundly like you normally do. And your alarm was going off, so I came in to wake you, just in time to see you flop your arm in the general direction of the bedside table. Your hand was a good two feet away, but the button was pushed down … the alarm was turned off. And you rolled back over like it never happened. It’s how I knew it was time to have this talk with you.”

“Really?” I’m sure the truly great heroes have better quips at moments like this than I did.

“You can use your power, son, and you already have. So you don’t have to worry about convincing yourself that you can. You just need to convince yourself that you already did. I’m not asking you to do anything new or anything you haven’t already done before. It’s just repeating a task.” He stood up and stepped down from the bench, standing before me. “Now hold out your hand again.”

I did.

“Your body already knows how to do this. Don’t let your brain get in the way. Clear your mind of everything. There is no farm, there is no corn: there is nothing but you, this table, and your phone. It’s not about telling the phone to move—don’t command the phone. Just visualize what you want to have happen. Imagine the successful outcome, and it will become the outcome. Don’t try so hard this time.”

I tried some deep breaths, pushing every thought out of my brain as best I could. I imagined the phone flying up from the bench into my hand and then imagined it again. Several beats passed as I strained and concentrated. I willed for that thing to move.

But it didn’t. Nothing happened. My father had gone silent, probably not sure how to deal with my unexpected failure.

And with that fleeting thought, I lost my focus and gave up. I started to apologize as I moved my hand back to my right knee in defeat. “I’m sorry, Dad—” but that was all I got out before I heard the sound of the phone falling back to the bench.

Was that what I think it was?
I froze, in complete shock. “Was that what I think it was?!” I inquired breathlessly.

“You had it almost a third of the way there,” Dad confirmed, sounding like a beaming and proud father. “You didn’t know?! You had it moving at first and then you wavered, but you had it! You, my son, are going to make a fine telekinetic. You’ll be able to pull it all the way to your hand in no time.” He was gushing. You would have thought that all his poker buddies were standing around, such a spectacle he was making.

I was still in shock.
Did I really just move that thing?
People with sight really do take for granted the everyday assurance that comes from being able to see the things around you. The eyes are more trustworthy than the ears and nose alone, usually. I felt like I always had an extra layer of doubt beyond what most kids did, just from not having any visual confirmation of, well, anything.

I lifted my head up to my father in euphoria and spit out a brand new revelation, the only thought I could find rumbling around between my temples, “I have the Force!”

“Yes, Phillip.” He burst out laughing again and leaned in to hug me, much too hard. “Yes, you do indeed.”

I stood up in victory, arms in the air, and shouted. “I am a superhero!” I felt invigorated, unstoppable, free. I felt like I mattered.

Dad corrected me, “Custodian, son.”

“Same difference, right?”

“I suppose,” he allowed.

What followed was a series of questions the likes of which you normally only see from five-year-olds … the kind where every answer leads to yet another question. It was the lightning round, my questions flying at him from all directions.

“How many people with super powers are there in the world?”

“Thousands.”

“How many are good guys?”

“More than half, but not enough. Some are neither good nor bad and simply choose to ignore their powers and live as normal humans.”

“How many live here?”

“In Freepoint? Out of the nine thousand or so people living here, only about fifteen hundred, I believe, are custodians. Maybe two thousand. The rest are support.”

“How many of them are bad?”

“Here? None. This is a safe zone for our kind. This is not a town where villains want to live.”

“What about Bobby Simpkins?”

“Your friend from that camping trip?”

“Yeah.”

“He does not have super powers. His family is support. His dad works in our transport center, actually. He’s a good guy.”

“What’s your real job?”

“Well, I was a crime-fighter in New York, busting robbers and other bad guys like my dad used to do. But now that we’ve moved here, I’m a protector.”

“What’s a protector?”

“A protector is a guardian of the city and its citizens. It’s kind of like being a policeman of sorts.”

“Wait a minute, I thought you said it was rare to have the same power as your parents,” I said, just then recalling that part of his “introduction to super powers” speech.

“That’s right. It is. It’s so rare that a lot of people at work think it’s an omen.”

“What kind of omen?” I asked hesitantly.

“That the child is special. Some of our greatest heroes in history have been sons or daughters who inherited a power identical to one of their parents. It only happens a few times every generation.”

“So you’re saying I’m special?”