The Minor Rescue

1

I used to think I was nothing special, but after everything that happened last semester, I know better.

For one thing, I can manipulate gravity.

If you ask Director Wolfshaw, he’ll say I’m no superhero, that a gravitar’s abilities are possible “because of science—not the bite of a radioactive spider or some magic ring.”

Whatever.

I think what I can do is pretty super, and because I was dropped sixteen stories on the night of a supermoon, I’m even more powerful than the average gravitar. Once I learn a new skill, my extra strength kicks in and I advance quickly. As soon as I figured out how to pull, I was immediately doing a heavy pull. And when there’s a supermoon, I’ve got even more power. I was the one who swooped in and BAM! KAPOW! stopped the bad guy and saved the lives of my best friends.

Okay, yeah, I’m also the one who let the bad guy, aka my great-uncle Saul, manipulate me and ultimately get away the night of The Incident. But—

“Noah, focus,” Wolfshaw barks. He’s got a broad chest, big muscles, and a military buzz cut that’s pretty spot-on for the director of a covert international organization affiliated with the CIA.

“Yes, sir!” I bark back. I straighten to my full height, which is almost as tall as he is, and adjust my blue belt.

Focus . . . I need to focus.

But not on practicing my press to build up to a heavy press like Wolfshaw wants me to do. Sure, I’d like to get off the provisional status I was put on after my mistakes with Saul. Yes, I want to earn my purple belt and keep ZOOMING through the Gravitas ranks. But I’m not going anywhere without Haley. What I’m focused on right now is helping my best friend get her press back. The dynamic duo sticks together.

When I learned I was a gravitar, Haley had already been training for a full six months. She was intermediate before I even started. But then Saul dropped her off the roof, and she lost her ability to press and went back to a green belt. While I’ve been advancing, she’s been stuck. She can pull and she can slug, but she can’t press anymore.

A press is basically a pull plus, enabling a gravitar to pull something heavier than his or her body weight. We essentially increase our mass by compressing—or pressing—gravitons to our bodies. This alters the gravitational forces between us and a heavier object so that we can pull on it and make it move.

Haley understands this with her brain, but not her body. Not anymore.

What happened that night is holding her back. Haley’s scared. And you can’t press from a place of fear.

I don’t think having the director of Gravitas as our instructor has helped either. Wolfshaw makes everybody nervous. Nobody knows why he was put in a teaching position, but personally, I think he’s here to keep an eye on me. He started once I entered intermediate. Coincidence? I think not.

“Noah, I said focus! Give me ten pull-ups,” says Wolfshaw. “Dawson has already pressed three times. Maybe pull-ups will help you focus.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, trying to keep irritation out of my voice.

All green and blue belts have their own sacks filled with cubes of tungsten. The cubes are pretty small, considering how much they weigh. They’re about the size of a grapefruit, but each weighs twenty-five pounds. We start off with bags equaling our weight, using sand to get it just right, and once we get our press, we work our way up in twenty-five-pound increments until we can test for our heavy press—four hundred pounds.

Dawson, who joined the intermediate class just a month after me, has already worked his way up to pressing one hundred and seventy-five pounds. Just twenty-five pounds less than me. He’s such a teacher’s pet.

I could probably press more than two hundred pounds, but Wolfshaw put me on a restricted schedule. I can bump up only twenty-five pounds a week until I reach my four-hundred-pound goal, while Dawson can add cubes to his bag whenever he’s ready.

It isn’t easy to watch him catching up to me.

I concentrate on the red bell mounted to a steel rafter above me. There are twelve of them spaced at intervals on the ceiling. I imagine a taut fishing line and a perfectly in-tune D on the trumpet, the things that helped me get my pull, and spin gravitons into a tight, thin line of connection. I hook the line of gravitons to the bell and begin to pull myself off the ground at a constant speed. Not too fast. Not too slow.

I rise two stories and flick the bell with a finger.

TING!

Then I slowly let go, what gravitars call a slug, and descend back down to the mat. One down, nine to go. Easy. I don’t even need to refocus on the bell to immediately pull again.

TING!

I get that there are consequences for the mistakes I’ve made, but having Wolfshaw always watching and Gravitas restricting my progress feels unfair. I think they’re slowing me down to see if I can handle it without losing my cool.

TING!

I don’t want to advance out of intermediate without Haley anyway.

TING!

TING!

As I rise for another pull-up, I look down at my best friend. Wolfshaw has her on the training track today, a super slick surface that cuts down on friction. If she tries to press but fails, she goes sliding toward her weight. The track may be good for giving immediate feedback, but in my opinion, the last thing Haley needs is negative feedback.

“How many is that, Noah?”

I’ve lost count. “Seven, sir,” I say as I slug back down.

Haley glances over at me and holds up five fingers. Five, seven—who cares? Her eyes flick to my blue belt, then back to her weighted bag sitting on the mat ten feet from her.

TING! TING! TING!

“Nice pulling,” whispers Dawson, and he presses and then pulls his weighted sack across the room again.

What he means is, What a loser, doing pull-ups when you could be pressing.

I focus on the gravitons between me and my sack as frames from my comic books run through my head. Some superheroes use their anger to boost their power. I’m one of them.

I let my irritation with Dawson, then the frustration at being ordered to do the stupid pull-ups, fill my thoughts. Rage builds as I think back to Uncle Saul’s hands pressing tape over my eyes and the way he dropped Haley off the roof of the school. The anger is always resting, close to the surface, waiting to be stirred up. It’s how I got my press, and I let it consume me now.

Once I’ve built up enough force and I’m heavy with the gravitons I’ve gathered, I pause and shift skills. I quickly quiet my mind, spin a desire line, and pull my weighted bag before the gravitons I pressed drift away. It slides across the studio floor easy as a toy being tugged by a grown man.

CHA-CHING!

Did you see that, Dawson?

He’s looking at his own bag, which drags slow but steady as sweat rolls down his face. I know he saw. He’s just jealous.

Press complete, cold settles into my body, all the way to my bones, like I just stepped into a freezer and shut the door behind me. Pressing is easy for me, but it has consequences. Every time I do it, it sucks all the heat and energy out of me. And the breathless, numb feeling has only increased with each cube I’ve added to my bag. I clench my teeth so they don’t chatter.

“Noah, have you found a new way to press?” asks Wolfshaw. He crosses the mat and stares into my eyes, as if he’s some kind of human lie detector.

“Yes, sir,” I lie.

Wolfshaw says anger will only get me so far. But the Hulk says, “the angrier I get, the stronger I get.” Thinking like the Hulk is what has me progressing faster than anyone in my class, maybe anyone in the history of Gravitas.

I think Haley should try to use her anger at Saul to find her press, too, but she’s all about doing things right. If Wolfshaw says anger is the wrong way, Haley won’t do it.

“Okay, Noah, I want you to press again,” says Wolfshaw, “and this time, tell the class how you’re doing it. Haley, listen up.”

She crosses her arms, and heat rushes to my face, matching the flush that rises into Haley’s cheeks. I hate it when Wolfshaw talks to her like that, publicly reminding her that she’s behind. Every student is looking at me, all seven of them.

“Let’s go, Noah,” says Wolfshaw.

I haven’t fully recovered from my previous press, but I can’t tell Wolfshaw that, or he’ll know I used my anger again. He claims when I do it right, I’ll be energized, not exhausted. I usually give myself at least ten minutes to recover, but I can still do it.

I jog to the other side of the room, trying to come up with a believable way to explain how I’m pressing.

“Um, first, I focus on the gravitons between me and my weight as I imagine . . . all the times I’ve succeeded.” I hate being used as an example, hate lying, but what can I do?

Use it. Use the hate.