When I first perfected teleporting people I would teleport any other Chipped that I didn’t like to various places, such as the desert that’s right up the road or the caves a few hundred miles away. And when the fighting chips saw they shouldn’t pick on me, because I don’t fit into any category of chipped, they started the old cliche of jocks vs geeks by picking on the tech chips. That didn’t work for me either so I started standing up for them too. That’s how I became friends with Parker, a tech, and Jessie, a fighter who wasn’t an egomaniac, yet even though I was using my abilities to help other chips I got in trouble and was restricted to the training room only. Not that I really follow that rule because really what can they do to me? But Lastner has it out for me because I don’t follow her rules so to keep our interactions to a minimum I cover my tracks well enough so I rarely get caught.
I had been told not to teleport off of the premises for security reasons, but the Vice President was being so awful and I really wanted to show them what I could do. I stand up, “Time for a little road trip.”
As soon as I say it, Hamilton and secret service agents flood the room but they aren’t fast enough. I know if I teleport us to my usual spots they’ll find us before I have the chance to calm everyone down, so at the last second I change our destination to my favorite place as a kid, the forest up the road from my childhood home in Oregon. No one will think to look for us here because I’ve never teleported farther than ten miles from the compound in New Mexico. The trip makes me a little woozy but everyone seems to have made it just fine. I check the Vice President’s vitals, something every Chipped is wired to do without getting close to the person, and he seems okay. Although his heart rate is slightly elevated, so I calm it to a normal rate and check over the others who also seem fine. They begin looking around at their surroundings, mystified. I sit down and close my eyes, not feeling one hundred percent, and lean against a huge redwood letting the energy of the forest wash over me. It feels almost like getting a hug from the one person you love the most after a long day.
“How did you do this?” I open my eyes and look at the Admiral.
“My chip allows me to do whatever I want with matter, atoms, or molecules, so basically I can make anything I want happen just with my surroundings. In my training Hamilton proposed I try moving objects from one side of the room to the other, not making them fly across the room, but actually taking, say an apple, and teleporting it from one table to the next. Eventually I moved up to teleporting people, though I’ve never teleported myself or anyone further than ten miles. Not because I didn’t think I could do it but more so because Lastner gets grumpy if she has to send security further than that to pick up people.”
The Admiral smiled at my last statement, “I gather you do this sort of thing a lot?”
I nod and smile back, “So much so I’m not actually allowed to use my abilities outside of the training room.”
“So what are you going to do just leave us out here to die?”
I close my eyes and lean my head back against the trunk of the tree. “You’re not a very smart person, are you Mr. Vice President?” He makes an indignant sound, “Of course I’m not going to leave you out here, but teleporting five people plus myself can wear a person out, so unless you want to end up scattered from here to the compound, I suggest you calm down and shut up because otherwise I’ll take us back and when I’m unable to carry all of you, I’ll drop you first.”
“You can’t do that! I’m the Vi-”
My eyes snap open, he’s unable to finish talking because I stop his vocal cords from moving, “I don’t care who you are, if you keep talking and treating me like a worthless piece of trash I will drop you off the nearest cliff.” His mouth snapped shut at my threat. “Thank you.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Stand around until you feel better?” The Secretary of State asked.
“Not necessarily,” I form chairs for them out of the undergrowth surrounding us. “Please have a seat.”
“What about wild animals?” The Defense Secretary asks, sounding genuinely concerned.
I close my eyes again so I can see a visual of the forest in my head. “There’s a bear about four miles that way, heading away from us.” I say pointing to my right. “And a bobcat about thirty yards behind you, heading for us because he’s curious. The rest are just birds and insects and a couple of deer downwind that caught our scent and are headed away from us.” I sense them turn to look behind them for the bobcat, “you won’t be able to see him yet.”
“What happens if it attacks us?” The Defense Secretary’s heart rate becomes elevated and adrenaline is released into his body, I don’t let it get very far, in an attempt to relax him before he gets too worked up.
“You’re with the most powerful person in the world, and yet you worry. I tell you I can control atoms, the things that make up everything in the entire world, and you still worry about being attacked by a bobcat, which, by the way, is only twice as big as a domestic house cat.” I make the bobcat speed up his approach, causing him to not care so much about the noise he makes so that the others can hear him approaching. He’s upon us in no time, trotting up to me I open my eyes and give him a scratch behind his ear. “Do you see? There’s nothing to worry about, he isn’t here to hurt anyone, just check us out.”
“But it’s a wild animal, how are you able to touch him so easily?” This time it’s the General who asks.
“The brain releases chemicals that determine what a person or animal will do, I can control these chemicals or even what chemicals are released into the body.” I make the bobcat fall asleep to show them what I mean, then I wake him up and give him a small dose of adrenaline so he’s alert as if there’s something close that should cause him to be afraid. I level him out and he comes to me and gives me a playful headbutt on the arm.
“That’s extraordinary.” The Defense Secretary says and the others nod in agreement.
“You’re going to help keep so many of our troops safe overseas. And here at home you could do so much to end the violence. The possibilities are endless.” The Admiral’s voice buzzed with excitement.
Ignoring them, I stand up and brush off the leaves that stuck to me. I bend down to give the bobcat one last pat on the head before teleporting it and giving it an extra dose of adrenaline causing it to run even further from us. “All right let’s get back to New Mexico.”
When we land back in the room, I quickly checked over everyone’s vitals before they can usher them out of the room away from me. Finding nothing wrong, I turn my attention to the dozen or so guns pointed at me. “You know boys I’m not the biggest fan of guns, so why don’t you lower your weapons and we’ll go about our day?”
A few eyes shifted to one agent in particular, their superior singled out, I turn my attention to him and raise an eyebrow, “No can do ma’am. You kidnapped the Vice President and four other important political figures.”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘kidnapped,’ I think I would use the word ‘enlightened.’ Now can we please do this the easy way? Where you guys put down the guns and I leave to take a nap? Because it’s been a pretty exhausting day.”
“Please Agent Simmons put down your weapon and order your men to do the same. They’re all back safe and sound. No harm done.” Hamilton adds in from behind me.
Agent Simmons’ face hardens and his eyes narrow, “The Vice President, the man I’m supposed to protect, disappeared for an hour without a trace because of her, Doctor.” He motions toward me with his gun, “And now you expect me just to let her go, because there was ‘no harm done?’ Sorry, Doctor, it doesn’t work like that.”
I roll my eyes and sigh loudly. The longer I stand here the more tired I become. I really need to lay down in my bed, on the floor, on a table, it really doesn’t matter at this point. When my eyes light up Agent Simmons thrusts his gun closer to my face but it turns to metallic dust and runs through his large brown hands, becoming one of fourteen piles of metallic dust on the floor. Not caring about anything but getting to my bed I move them aside so I can get to the door, but as I reach for the handle and hand grabs my upper arm pulling me back into the middle of the room. I backpedal allowing the hand to guide me before I turn around and come nearly nose to nose with Agent Simmons, who, even at my height of five feet ten inches, still had several inches on me.
“I’m getting really tired of your tricks, little girl.” His grip on my arm tightens as he speaks.
My eyes narrow. I check all of my options out of this without causing significant harm to Agent Simmons, because somewhere in my mind I know he’s just doing his job. I slam my free hand into the arm that’s holding mine, forcing him to release me. I step out of the way of his next attack and trip him up so that he falls to the ground. While he’s on the ground I level out his adrenaline levels and increase his serotonin making him relax enough for me to walk out of the room.
Once I make it to my room I remove the door and large window, making it impossible for anyone to enter. I change into a pair of shorts and a tank top and crawl under the covers. Sleep comes quickly but doesn’t stay for very long. I glance at my clock which glares back at me in red 15:39. Not even two hours of sleep, I look around my room for what woke me. My eyes land on the wall where my door was, I add the door and window back in and almost immediately Hamilton and Lastner bust into my room. “Jeez, ever heard of knocking?”
“What the hell was that today?!” Lastner’s face is redder than I’ve ever seen it and no matter what I’ve done she’s never cussed, at least not in front of me. I open my mouth to defend myself but she cuts me off, “Why would you embarrass us like that?! Do you have any idea what that might do to the funding of this place?!”
She starts toward me but I get up and open my closet pulling out a light cardigan I pull it on before turning to face her. “Have you even spoken with the board members?” I say in the most menacing voice I can muster, “Because maybe if you’d do your research Doctor you would find they’re excited about my abilities and how I can help them.”
Hamilton, who stayed silent through the exchange, grabs Lastner’s arm and tries to pull her away from me, but she steps so close we’re merely millimeters apart. “Don’t test me. Don’t forget I’m the one who made you what you are. I can take that away from you.”
“Try and I’ll scatter you across the world. Don’t test me, trust me I’m much more dangerous than you know.”
“Come on Doctor Lastner. The board is waiting.” Hamilton says gently as if coaxing a wild animal out of its cage.
“You wouldn’t want to keep the board waiting, would you, Doctor?”
“We’ll talk about this later. Don’t think you’re going to get off that easy this time.”
She backs off allowing Hamilton to lead her through the door. I close my eyes as soon as they’re gone, and visualize the compound. There are the set of dorms, where I am, the main building that has the library, classrooms, and training facilities, the staff housing on the other side of the compound, and then there’s the outdoor obstacle course, which is my personal favorite. I find Parker in one of the classrooms, go figure a nerd in the nerd lab, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything important so I teleport him to my room. I keep my eyes shut, still searching for Jessie, it’s almost four so she’s probably in the library. I jump to the library and find her reading in her favorite nook, but I teleport her anyway. “Hang on, let me finish this chapter.”
“Oh sure, she gets to finish her chapter but I don’t get to finish my experiment. Your timing sucks, Gavy.” Parker says with a smile, shielding himself from the pillow Jessie swings at his head.
“You didn’t look like you were doing anything important. Trust me after last time, I checked.” I shutter at the memory of teleporting them without checking to see what they were doing and finding out just how far along their relationship was. I’ll just say this, the image of Parker’s bare ass is forever etched into my memory.
Parker turns beet red and Jessie, who finished that chapter, bursts into a fit of laughter. “So what’s up Gavy?” Jessie asks once she recovers enough to speak.
“You had your review today didn’t you?”
“Oh yeah! That’s right! How was it Gavy?”
This is what they do when they’re together, they match up so well that they feed off of each other’s ideas and energy. It’s fascinating to watch. “It was okay. The Vice President was a douche, but the two military guys were cool. They seemed excited about what I can do, but I’m in loads of trouble-”
“Gavy, please tell me you didn’t take them off the compound.” I give Jessie a look, “Shit, did you take them somewhere interesting at least?”
“I took them to the forest in Oregon where my family and I used to go hiking.”
“Holy shit Gavy! I didn’t know you could teleport that far and with that many people. That’s huge!” Parker’s scientist brain was firing on all the possibilities this opens for me.
“Maybe, but we stayed for a while because I didn’t feel one hundred percent and there was no way I was going to put any one of them at risk.”
“Well that’s to be expected. It was your first time with that many people and the distance thing certainly didn’t help.” He’s barely paying attention at this point, his eyes are brightened by his chip but unfocused.
I tell them the rest of what happened ending with coming into my room to take a nap. “Lastner must be pissed. I’m sure she thinks you did this just to make her look bad.”
“Yeah she was just in here.” I look down at my hands, “She got in my face and said she was the one who made me and she could take that away from me.”
Parker’s head snaps up, “She wouldn’t dare! Not after what the board has seen. She can’t, the military applications of your ability alone are worth more than all of us combined. If she got rid of you she’d lose her entire program.”
“Yeah Gavy, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, there’s nothing she can do to you.”
The board decided, after my little stunt, I should start immediately. I was to train with the SEALs first as requested by Admiral Atkins. Parker, Jessie, Henry, a fighter, and Josie, a tech, came with me because they wanted to test out how a team of Chipped worked with not only each other but the military as well. It had been twenty six years since the Navy started allowing women to train as SEALs, yet it was still mostly men. Jessie and I fit right in, though, because we’re both above average height and are the best fighters on the team, but Josie is everything a lovely lady is supposed to be. She is short, petite and for the most part very quiet. Her ability, however, is incredibly valuable in our situation; it allows her to see inside a person’s body and fix any injury, so if someone gets shot she just guides the bullet out and reattaches or fixes whatever the bullet destroyed. Henry is a weapons specialist and the clown of the group. Standing at six foot four he’s a perfect fit. Parker runs possibilities better than all of us combined, so even though he is a tall, lean guy instead of big and bulky he rapidly gained the respect of everyone on the team.
We had a trial period for a year and once our year was up and we showed them how much having Chips on the missions helped not only the success of them but also the survival rate; they moved me up to Commander of the Chipped and the rest of us were successfully integrated into everything, from military to police to hospitals. Years passed with no big issues, until the URCS, United Russian and Chinese States, obtained our technology, and started what was coined the Cold War of 2087.
Author: Kailan Counahan 