Headmaster Veridia gave a small, dismissive wave of her hand. “Now, you will proceed to normal orientation. Your instructors will take over from here.”

  The massive glass wall turned opaque. The fifty students were ushered out of the observation chamber and into a stark, high-ceilinged briefing room. The air still hummed with the tension of being watched, but the immediate, ancient pressure of the Headmaster was gone.

  Two men waited for them at the front of the room.

  The first was Marcus Hale. He stood with the solid, unmovable presence of a granite cliff. His brown hair was cropped short, and his arms were crossed over a barrel chest, revealing forearms corded with muscle that suggested his Drill Signature was an extension of his own formidable strength.

  Beside him stood Frederick Stan. He was leaner, with sharp features and neatly styled black hair. He held a glass of water that frosted over at the rim, then cleared, then frosted again in a silent, looping display of control. His H?O Signature was a quiet, constant proclamation.

  “Attention,” Marcus Hale’s voice boomed, cutting through the low murmur. “I am Instructor Hale. This is Instructor Stan. We are your First-Year Responder Course instructors. This means we are responsible for teaching you how not to die—or get others killed—when you use your powers.”

  Frederick Stan took a calm sip from his glass. “Your cohort will be split into two classes. The method is simple.” He placed a small, sealed ballot box on a table at the front of the room. “There are only two designations inside: R1 and R2. You will draw one. Those who draw R1 will be with Instructor Hale. Those who draw R2 will be with me.”

  “My class will be disciplined,” Hale stated, his eyes scanning the room as if already identifying the weak links. “It will be hard. You will learn precision, or you will learn what the medical wing looks like from the inside.”

  “My class will be… adaptive,” Stan said, a faint, unreadable smile touching his lips. “You will learn to think under pressure. Or you will learn the taste of failure. It is quite bitter.”

  “Form a line,” Hale commanded. “Now.”

  The students shuffled into order. One by one, they reached into the box.

  Theo drew his slip. He unfolded it. R2.

  Edgar, ahead of him, glanced at his own slip and smirked. R2.

  Vance Kruger tore his open, scowled, and shoved it in his pocket. R2.

  Lily Cinclare drew hers, glanced at it without expression, and let it fall to the floor. R2.

  The split was done. Roughly half the students stood on each side of the room.

  “R1. With me,” Hale said, turning on his heel and marching out of the room without a backward glance. His group scrambled to follow.

  Frederick Stan watched them go, then turned his placid gaze on his twenty-five remaining students. “R2. Follow.”

  He led them not to a classroom, but out of the building, across a pristine courtyard of blue-veined stone, and onto a wide parade ground. In the distance, perhaps three miles away across the academy grounds, sat a low, windowless structure of grey alloy—the Responder Dormitory Annex.

  Stan stopped. He pointed.

  “You see that building over there.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “The last student to pass through its front door,” he said, his tone conversational, “will be suspended for three weeks. Your semester begins now.”

  A stunned silence held for a second before it shattered.

  “What?!” The protest came from a girl with sharp, intelligent eyes and black hair—Chloe Spencer. “You can’t do that! We haven’t done anything! And the semester isn’t supposed to start for a week! This is a violation of the academic schedule!”

  A boy with stark white hair and a calm, analytical demeanor—Frederick Hauser—stepped forward, his voice respectful but firm. “With all due respect, sir, this is quite unreasonable. We are fatigued from the entrance exam and disoriented by orientation. This test is invalid.”

  A hot-headed boy with a shock of red hair—Rory—threw his hands up. “We just got here! We’re exhausted! Have some conscience!”

  Instructor Stan listened, his expression unchanging. He took another slow sip of water. Then he lowered his glass.

  “Oh,” he said softly. “Yelling. At your teacher.” He tilted his head. “Fine then. Let’s spice things up.”

  He looked directly at Vance Kruger, who was glowering at the distant building. “Thank Mr. Kruger there for the inspiration. An average Booster can run three miles in five to seven minutes. New rule. Anyone who does not pass through that door in the next 7 minutes…” He let the sentence hang in the air, his eyes cold. “…will be expelled from Turboland Academy. Permanently.”

  The world seemed to drop out from under them.

  “WHAT?!” The cry was unanimous, a raw chorus of panic and disbelief.

  “Your time,” Stan said, checking a simple wrist chronometer, “starts now.”

  For a heartbeat, no one moved, paralyzed by the sheer absurd injustice of it.

  Then Vance Kruger roared. “THIS IS SO SHITTY!” Twin gouts of searing plasma erupted from his back, not to attack, but to propel him forward like a ragged, screaming rocket. He shot across the grounds, leaving a trail of scorched grass and terror.

  The dam broke. Twenty-four other students erupted into motion. Signatures flared—a boy became a blur of motion, a girl shot grappling vines from her wrists, another began gliding on gusts of wind. It was a desperate, chaotic scramble.

  Theo ran. Pure, raw, Baseline running. He poured everything he had into his legs, but around him, students were already pulling ahead with their powers. He was falling to the back of the pack.

  Someone shoved past him—Leo, the Lionhead, using enhanced strength to bulldoze a path. Theo’s foot caught on an uneven paver. He stumbled, hands scraping against the rough stone as he fell.

  The breath was knocked out of him. He pushed himself up, his palms stinging. He looked at the swarm of his classmates pulling away, then at the impossibly distant building.

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  He looked at his watch.

  TURBO STRAIN: 80%

  The number screamed at him. Unstable. Critical. Do not engage.

  But the cold voice of Instructor Stan echoed in his mind. Expelled. Permanently.

  No. The thought was a white-hot blade of pure will. I just got here. Everything I’ve been through. Everything Stupendous sacrificed for me. It can’t be for nothing. It CAN’T end like this.

  He couldn’t be expelled. Not now. Not before it even began.

  Gritting his teeth, Theo pushed himself to his feet, his eyes locked on the distant grey building. The hum in his chest, that sleeping star, began to churn in response to his desperation, threatening to eclipse the warning on his wrist.

  He had seven minutes.

  He had 80% strain.

  He had 3 miles to cross.

  And he had absolutely no choice.

  A network of faint, golden lines, like circuitry woven just beneath his skin, glowed briefly along Theo’s arms and legs before fading into a simmering, contained light. The hum in his chest settled into a steady, driving rhythm. He wasn't unleashing Turbo. He was coupling it. Channeling the barest whisper of its potential directly into sinew and bone, turning his body into a precision engine.

  Then he ran.

  Ahead of him, the race was already a spectacle of desperate power.

  Vance Kruger was in the lead, a ragged comet of flame and rage, howling with manic laughter over his shoulder. “Later, losers!” Plasma jets scorched the air behind him.

  Near the starting line, a girl with vibrant orange hair, Silvie Monita, smirked at a boy crouched lazily on the ground. He had brown hair and wore visor-style speed goggles pushed up on his forehead. Dykes Tucker.

  “Giving up already?” Silvie taunted.

  Dykes didn’t even look at her. “Nah,” he said, cracking his neck. “Just giving ’em a head start. Makes it sporting.”

  “Well, suit yourself.” Silvie raised her hands. A shimmering, iridescent bubble enveloped her, and with a sharp whoosh, it began rolling forward, carrying her inside at a startling clip.

  Festus Smith was a blur of controlled motion, the specialized treads under his feet whirring as he hit 70 km/h, skirting the edge of the pack with focused intensity.

  Lily Cinclare’s power offered no physical boost, but she had the physical boost of being a signate, so she ran with elegant, determined efficiency, her face a mask of concentration.

  Edgar Rodigar employed a more refined approach. Using short, precise bursts of repulsion from his soles, he glided a few inches above the ground, eliminating friction. Then, with a grunt of effort, he stretched his arms behind him and fired a concussive repulsive blast, rocketing himself forward in a sudden, powerful surge.

  Theo moved. His speed wasn’t a supernatural blur, but it was impossibly, inhumanly consistent: a steady 18 meters per second. He blew past the students relying on mere enhanced strength or endurance, his footfalls a rapid, machine-like staccato on the pavement.

  A boy with silver hair, Silas Reed, flew through the air, but his propulsion was weak—a mere 20 km/h. Theo passed him as if he were standing still.

  Chloe Spencer cursed, then her feet detonated with concussive force, launching her into a frantic, arcing trajectory through the air, more ballistic missile than runner.

  Frederick Hauser simply froze a path of slick ice under his own feet and slid across it with serene, glacial speed.

  Theo’s golden-lit form steadily gained on Festus Smith’s wheel-assisted sprint. Festus glanced back, his eyes widening behind his goggles.

  “Oh. You’re fast,” Festus yelled over the wind, a competitive grin spreading across his face. “But you can’t keep up with me!” The mechanisms under his feet whined, and his speed climbed—80 km/h, pulling away again.

  Keba Dunlop, a boy with dark skin and piercing blue eyes, suddenly spun around. He took a deep breath, and a single, focused word boomed from his lips: “NOW!”

  A controlled, concussive force erupted from his mouth, not as a weapon, but as a thruster. It shot him thirty feet forward through the air. He landed, skidded, took another breath, and shouted again. “NOW!” Each word was a precisely timed jet, propelling him in erratic, powerful bursts.

  Ethan Carter, with no movement-based power, simply ran with everything he had, his face a portrait of grim futility.

  And Dykes Tucker still hadn’t moved from the starting line.

  He finally stood, stretched his arms high, and gave a casual jump. “Okay,” he said to no one. “That’s about a good head start.” He dropped into a sprinter’s crouch, one knee on the ground. A feral smile split his face.

  Then he bolted.

  It wasn’t running. It was the earth rejecting him. He became a streak of vibrating color. The air cracked in his wake.

  100 meters per second.

  He tore past the entire scattered field in a heartbeat. He blew by a furious Vance Kruger with a taunting shout lost to the wind.

  “Too slow, loser!” Dykes’s voice was a whip-crack fading behind him.

  Vance’s roar of “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!” was swallowed by the distance.

  From a dead stop, it took Dykes Tucker exactly forty-eight seconds to cross the three miles, skid to a stop, and slap the door of the Dormitory Annex. He leaned against the wall, not even winded, his goggles now pulled down over smirking eyes as he watched the chaos of the race unfold toward him.

  Theo saw it happen. The impossible speed. The gauntlet had been thrown down before it even began. He pushed harder, the golden lines under his skin burning brighter, the watch on his wrist humming a warning he could no longer afford to hear. The door was still far away, and time was a bleeding wound.

  To Be Continued...