Chương 16: The Evilness of School Assemblies

Mavis stood at her locker, changing out books during the first break of the day. We hadn't talked much since the whole cafeteria fiasco so I decided to try to break the ice.

"Hey," I leaned back against the lockers, arms folded in front of me.

"Long time no see, stranger." Maybe they weren't the best choice of words, but I kept my voice light. She gave me a look.

"You haven't exactly been looking for me, have you? I've been eating lunch alone for the past week." I brushed my hair back behind my ears.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I've just been busy, trying to prep for graduation at the end of the semester. I pretty much live in the library now, it's kind of been like a self-imposed Castaway situation. I made the globe in there my Wilson. People get weirded out when I talk to him." That was in fact accurate. I was not about to spend another year here because my grades had lagged from my secret extracurricular activities. Mavis shoved a book into her backpack.

"Knowing you, it would be more like Lord of the Flies, Cass." I scratched my chin, pursing my lips.

"That's actually not a bad idea. I feel like I could take over them all to become queen of the nerd people." She shrugged.

"It's fine. I get it. You're not going to be here next year, so I guess I should just get used to sitting by myself from now on."

"Well, you could do what I did and take summer classes so maybe you could get out by next year?"

"No thanks. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a normal high school experience." The loudspeakers in the corners of the hallways suddenly blared.

"Attention all students. Please make your way to the Assembly Hall for a special presentation." The students around me cheered. Any reason to not be sitting in class, taking notes, or listening to a lecture to be tested on later was a cause for celebration. My smile faltered a little because school presentations tended to be about one thing.

"Well, we can sit together for this lovely interruption of regularly scheduled classes," I offered. She stared at me as if I'd missed something.

"They already warned me; I'm excused. Guess I'll be the one in the library this time." Oh yes, Mavis and her affliction. I didn't forget it, I just hadn't recently remembered.

"Alright, well have fun chatting with Wilson, he gives great advice." She shook her head as she walked away. The assembly hall had movie theater seating that tried to eat you if you let it. Scratchy, threadbare fabric covering the chairs and the metal often getting stuck while folding down- they're probably the most dangerous thing in this school. Gotta make the seating as uncomfortable as possible so students don't fall asleep in them. I sat in the back, leaning low in my seat.

Principal Barker stood at the podium, bald head shining under the studio lights while the students milled around, chattering.

"Welcome, welcome everybody," he said into the microphone.

"Please find a seat and then we need things quiet. We have a special guest today- Mr. Johnson, will you please put your pants back on, thank you- a special guest from the government's own Super Protection Agency. They'd like to give us a presentation- ALL OF YOU NEED TO BE QUIET RIGHT NOW!" The jabbering silenced immediately as our ears began ringing in what might be newfound deafness. Principal Barker really needed to send out those resumes.

He looked down, straightened his tie, and cleared his throat a little, but his voice still came out wobbly.

"-about how we can all be more safe. Ms. Briggs, please?" A woman in a business suit came clacking onto the stage with her sensible heels. Her short brown hair domed around her head in an almost bowl cut and you could see her rich red lipstick all the way here in the nosebleed section.

"Hello everyone, my name is Ms. Briggs, but you can call me Patricia." She grinned at us like she'd made a joke, then continued speaking in a commercial-smooth voice.

"Now I want to talk to you all about what's probably your favorite subject- can you guess?"

"Your mom!" someone shouted.

"Cheetos!" yelled another.

"Supers!" Cried out Embry and she had even raised her hand just to get double points.

"Oh, A+ for that one," Patricia guffawed and Embry beamed, mission accomplished.

"Yes, I represent a very special sector of the government whose only focus is to keep you and everyone else safe. So let's talk about how we do that." The woman folded her hands in front of her, showing off perfectly painted red nails.

"There is a very special issue we want to speak about today which is a rumor going around about a drug. Some people are saying that there is a villain or a henchman that is using his powers to create a drug that can turn anyone into a super. We, as members of the government, want to make it completely clear to everyone here: these rumors are totally false. We know from multiple scientific studies over the past forty years that there is no way to create supers, they are simply born, so to speak."

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"This is not the first rumor we have had to deal with. Many people have died because they took something that promised them powers and then jumped off a building thinking they could fly. Drugs can make you feel powerful in the moment, but it's not real."

"Can I get everyone right here right now to commit with me to say no to drugs?" Embry and a handful of kids at the front of the auditorium repeated after her, swearing to never try drugs. Far more students omitted the 'not' part in order to swear to take them instead. Mainly, it just sounded like a great mumbling, but Tony DePaulo was half baked already so he held an upraised hand in oath, yelling out for all to hear.

"I swear to say yes to drugs, any drugs and all drugs, so help me god!" The assistant principal was quick to drag him out despite his protests.

"What did I do?" Ms. Briggs smiled widely at her crowd again.

"Now that we have that terrible rumor out of the way, I want to speak about a real problem you have in your very own neighborhood. Something far more insidious precisely because some people tell themselves that it's the right thing to do." For some reason, regardless of whether their audience was a theater full of kids or teenagers, speakers will always talk to them as if they were toddlers.

"Now a lot of times, it seems pretty simple to say what's right and wrong. If we hurt someone, we're doing the wrong thing, right? Or if we steal something, or put someone in danger? That's what villains do. And if we help someone, we're doing the right thing. That makes us heroes." She began walking around the stage, holding the microphone cord delicately so that she wouldn't trip on it.

"But not everyone has the same definition of what causes harm- or even helps- and that's exactly why we need our government programs to bring order to what could very easily become chaos. Just the same as we don't rely on individuals to determine what's acceptable or not for our laws, we had to create a system that, well, most of us agree with."

"Now, who here thinks it's okay to steal just because you want to? Okay, yes, I see from your raised hands that some of you do, but many of us agree that's not something good. But that's an easy one, huh? That question feels a little harder when it's for something good. For example, maybe you'd want to try to save someone when they're choking. Not a bad thing, right? But then, who here wants to be saved while choking by someone who hasn't been trained in the Heimlich maneuver? Yeah, that might not go over well.

You could do more damage than good."

"This is why we have the system that we have, to make sure that the people out there saving others, who put themselves at risk for the wellbeing of ordinary people- whether that be police officers, fire fighters, EMTs, and especially, our favorites, the supers- they are highly trained to know exactly the right thing to do at the right time and the right place.

Now, we don't often have people trying to perform surgery without proper studying and classes, but some people do discover that they have super powers and they decide to not tell anyone." The A students booed, the F students cheered. I began twisting my fingers together.

"I know, I know. It's very tempting to do that. Especially when it's not you, but rather your friend or just someone you know. It can feel like maybe you just want to keep it a secret. After all, they'd only use it in good ways, right? They'll just show it off at parties or some even try to be a hero on the streets. It sounds really harmless, right? But unfortunately, it isn't.

Who here remembers what happened when an unregistered super going by the name of Ice Cold tried to use her freezing powers to save someone and ended up turning a whole building full of people into a freezer? It was fifteen years ago, so you might have been too little to remember, but every person- every child, every woman, every father or husband in that building died of hypothermia that night because everyone was unprepared for this outcome.

My agency works with every registered hero so they know exactly who to send out in an emergency to help people the most and what might go wrong. This is exactly why we need to have trained individuals serving us. Big powers need big training- you might want to write that down." No one moved a muscle but I did hear scribbling coming from Embry's section of the auditorium and her head was tilted down like she was writing.

"Now I'll be completely honest with you because I want you all to be honest with me. We've heard reports of an unregistered super in this area, something we refer to as a vigilante. Yeah, you thought villain was the only bad 'v' word. In a lot of ways, a vigilante isn't all that different from a villain because they both believe that they can be above the law.

It really doesn't matter if they have good intentions, anyone working outside the law can have a different idea about what is morally right and could change their mind about that belief at any minute. We must have order in an area that already allows for a lot of chaos. So today I'd like you all to make another pledge to me, to your friends, to our country- if I see something, I will say something. We need you to report anything suspicious and it's perfectly alright even if it seems really small.

It's better to report something small so we can catch it before it gets big. We have an e-mail address, a text number, and a hotline that you can call at any time to report to. We're counting on you to help make our community the safest it can be. Thank you." The obligatory clapping began, but my hands stayed still. Over the crowd of heads turned towards the stage, one was looking away. It was Brandon, and he was staring at me.

—--- I walked out of the auditorium on shaky legs, trying to stay one of the milling crowd.

"Dude, if I had superpowers, everyone would know. I'd climb to the school rooftop to show everyone."

"Why would anyone hide having a super power? It seriously makes you super, like literally better than everyone else."

"Well, I have always noticed that Corey Sanders has this overpowering bad smell and he gets very defensive when you mention it. Do you think that could be a power?" If it was, he was obviously not trying hard enough to hide it. I tried keeping my face neutral, making my way to chem lab. My eyes were on my feet, looking at the lights, anything to avoid people's faces. In typical fashion, the small bit of joy I could achieve at school had been quickly snuffed out shortly after it arrived.

But there were worse things than needing to show some restraint around my fellow peers. Goodbye, happy new Cass. Hello, old crotchety Cass. I could go back to barfing, more fainting. Go full Clark Kent. Because truthfully, even with the tension caused by that presentation, I was not giving up my power. Certainly it showed me that I needed to be more careful. If I was going to be a vigilante at night, I'd need to be hypervigilant about my identity during the day.

From now on, the only time-slowing happening at school would be the regular kind induced by monotonous lecturing teachers. If bullies, especially Brandon, teased me, tried to get me upset, I would just do what the old me used to do. Throw up and internally die from humiliation. I'd hide my smile, walk around with a permanent frown twisting my lips. It wouldn't be hard if I just concentrated on the general atmosphere of school life. Because at night, I became Zero.

She could fight, save people, slow down time and space. So what did it matter if everyone thought Cass was a weak, fragile nothing? Underneath that, Zero was saving the day.