"SAVANTS?" I said, holding my spoon midway between my mouth and the bowl, letting drops of milk fall back into the bowl. "Do you mean, like, comic book superheroes and stuff?"
Natalie pulled back, a disturbed frown on her features. "Don't tell me you don't even remember what superhumans are."
"I" —I was interrupted by a flood of memories, memories of reading about superhumans in school, going to some website called 'Neo Ranks' that had news and discussions about superhumans, learning about neogenetics, and a whole bunch of other things.
"No, wait, I remember.
Superhumans have been known to the world since nineteen eighty-six, when the first superhumans appeared.
Some of them became heroes while others became villains and now they're an accepted part of every country on Earth."
"Right," said Natalie. "And you and I are both superhumans ourselves."
"We are?" I said. "What kind of powers do I have?"
"Super strength, Kinetic Absorbtion, super speed, healing factor, flight, and the ability to shoot Golden lightning from your hands," said Regina.
"It's quite the power set."
I looked down at my hands. "Wow, I can do all of that? Awesome. I want to try them out now."
But Natalie suddenly grabbed my wrist, making me look at her in surprise.
"Please, not here. You might destroy your room."
I couldn't say no to Natalie's eyes, so I said, "All right. Well, then what are your powers?"
She let go of my wrist and sat back. "My powers? They're a bit … difficult to explain. Think magic."
"Wait, can you pull rabbits out of a hat or something?" I said as I shoveled more cereal into my mouth.
I chewed it up and swallowed with a satisfying sigh.
"That's not what I mean," said Natalie. "I mean actual magic.
I can teleport, I can float, I can summon fire and water … I have quite a variety of my own skills, as you no doubt may remember."
"Cool," I said. Then another question occurred to me. "Wait, do we have like, superhero names?"
"Yes," said Natalie, nodding. She pointed at me. "You're known as KING. As for me … you can call me Hex."
As soon as Natalie said that word, something inside me shifted. I suddenly found myself feeling … not exactly distrustful of her, but I did look at her a little differently.
She was not behaving in a suspicious manner, but the way she said that word—Hex—made me trust her a little less than I did before.
I wasn't sure where this feeling came from, but maybe it was just another part of my amnesia.
"Hex," I repeated. I hated how the word tasted in my mouth, but I didn't say that to Natalie because I wasn't sure what to make of it and I didn't.want to offend her unnecessarily.
"That's a … nice word."
I wasn't so sure that I did a good job of hiding my disgust, because her eyes narrowed when I said that, almost as if she could read my mind and so knew how I really felt.
Though she clearly wasn't as strong as me, I still worried that she might try to attack me now.
But then she relaxed and smiled again. "Yes, it is. You always did like it, so I'm glad to see that you remember that, at least."
I gulped down another spoonful of cereal and then took a sip from my orange juice. That was close. My mind goes into overdrive as I eat.
She's not who she claims to be. Or, at the very least, not in the context she's portraying...
Even still... I need to tread carefully. I'm pretty sure she noticed just now.
Or maybe she hadn't actually noticed my disgust and had been thinking about something else?
Either way, something seems off...
"But I still don't understand what Liberation is, exactly," I muse, snapping my mind back on track. "So we're trying to make equality between superhumans and normal humans. What does that mean, exactly?"
Natalie rubbed her arm, which made her look kind of cute. "What does that mean? It means that we don't believe in seogenetics."
I frowned. "You don't believe in seogenetics? How can you say that?
Hasn't it been established that superpowers are genetic?
I mean, sure, no one knows for sure exactly how it all works, but I thought it was a pretty well-established idea by now."
"That's just a lie," she says firmly. "In truth, superpowers are really just social constructs.
Anyone can have powers. They just need to identify as a superhuman and then they will be just as super powered as you or me."
"Really?" I said. "Huh. Why would scientists lie about the origin of superpowers?"
"Because there are privileged groups of people who want to oppress others," said Natalie.
Her grip on my blankets tightened and her voice actually shook. "By pretending that superhumans are born with their powers, they seek to keep all the power to themselves.
It allows them to lord over everyone and establish separate and unequal standards for society in favor of them. It is unjust … and highly problematic for socirty as a whole."
She sounded incredibly angry about this.
Her frown became an angry scowl, her hands shook, and she was staring at the wall like she was trying to burn a hole through it through sheer willpower alone.
Again, I actually felt a little afraid of her, even though I didn't have any real reason to be.
It wasn't like she was going to hurt me or anything, right?
How effective would it be with my supposed Healing Factor?
"Well, if that's the case, then have you tried to tell people about this?" I said.
"We've tried, but the advocates of seogenetics are evil and zealous bigots," said Natalie with an indignant shudder. "They slander our names, attack us, and even try to kill us.
They put our leader and founder—a wonderful old man known as the Liberator —into a coma and are even holding him hostage, even though all he did was advocate for what he believed in."
"That's horrible," I said. "And they did all of that just because they disagree with... us?"
"Exactly," said Natalie. "It's awful, simply awful, how they do that.
It's why we have to remain in hiding, because if we don't, they will get us and stamp out our great dream forever."
"That's bad," I said. "So we've just been in hiding with Liberation for a while now?"
"Yes," said Natalie, nodding. "We haven't really been able to live a normal life, at least since joining Liberation.
You can't live a normal life as a Liberator, mostly because of how hostile society in general and the superhero community in particular is toward us."
"Wow," I said. I sipped my orange juice, because I wasn't sure what to say.
"I don't remember how we joined Liberator, though. When did that happen?"
Suddenly, she rubbed her arm again and looked away, which seemed like a strange reaction to what seemed to me to be an honest and simple question to answer. "It was … last year.
You, me, and several other young superhumans were approached by my uncle, Demiurge, with an offer to join Liberation.
He explained it all to us and we agreed to help him, even though it would put us against the world, because he laid out the facts and reasoning behind Liberation so persuasively that we just couldn't refuse."
I opened my mouth to say that I didn't remember that at all, but all of a sudden, memories began flooding my mind again.
I saw myself, Natalie, and several other teenagers close to us in age standing outside our school during night.
A tall, old-looking man in pitch black wizard robes was standing before us; Demiurge.
He was explaining what Liberation was and the truth about superpowers and superhumans.
I saw shocked and doubtful expressions on
the faces of my friends, but I could also sense that the truth of Liberation was starting to sink into their minds.
Then I saw us accept Demiurge offer to
join, felt the fear and trembling that came with it, but also the sense of righteousness, like we were taking a stand alone against an unjust and cruel world.
I nodded. "Now I remember. But my memory of a lot of things is still kind of foggy."
"That's fine," said Nat. "It will all come back in due time. In the meantime, why don't you just enjoy your breakfast?
And maybe, if there's time, we can enjoy something else together."
I might not have remembered much, but that didn't mean I didn't understand what she was implying.
And, maybe I didn't remember everything about her as much as I should, but hey, I didn't mind waking up to my gorgeous supposed lover giving me breakfast and wanting to get her freak on, you feel me?
All of a sudden, however, there was a tiny buzzing noise and she pulled her phone out of her back pocket, nearly hypnotizing me with the... ahem... jiggle.
She unlocked the screen and
answered the phone, saying, "Yes?"
I heard a voice on the other end, but it was too quiet and indistinct for me to understand.
But Regina seemed to understand it perfectly, because her expression became less playful and more serious the longer she listened to the voice.
Finally, Natalie said, "All right. We'll be there."