Episode 2 - Aeronautics

I love this new editor for Blogger. It carried over the formatting from Tumblr, I am so happy. :> Anyway, on with the episode~

P-roes Spin-Off

Pisay Garnet 2013

Ordinary People. Extraordinary Abilities.

Real People. Unreal Adventure.

Episode 2 – Aeronautics

Written and directed by Bianca Publico

Co-directed by Marianne Cadiz

Previously, on PG13…

“Tell the boys to send them immediately.”
‘Oh riiight, a basketball game. How boring.’

‘Ybiernas Industries, huh?’

“You never want to continue arguing when I’m winning.”
“But I know you. I know of your ability.”

Now, PG13 continues.

____________________

Jadee pulled her long hair back nervously, trying to calm herself down. She tried to remember everything she’d studied for the past two days.

“Jadee, are you alright?”

She turned to face Gab. “It’s another math exam. I’m on the brink of failure.”

“Everyone is! Cheer up.”

“Pat, that’s a really weird reason to cheer up.”

Jadee looked out the window, to check if any of the leaves were blowing. Some were, far off in the mini-forest, but it was hot in the classroom itself. The school’s main power line had shut down ‘for maintenance’ and the classroom was not its usual windy self. Jadee fanned herself with her handouts.

The class suddenly fell silent. Jadee, Gab, and Pat turned around to see why, and the reason was apparent—their Math teacher wasn’t there.

Well, the usual one, anyway. There was an unfamiliar male teacher standing in front of them, carrying a stack of papers and a box of chalk in his arms.

“Hello, class. Your teacher is at home sick, and she requested me to cover for your math exam.”

Some students groaned quietly at that. The teacher smiled, and so did Jadee. It wasn’t every test day that teachers are absent; the hope that the exam would be cancelled was always there.

“Oh, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Ancer Villacruel, an art teacher.”

“So why are you teaching math?” one of the ruder boys asked.

“It’s just an exam, isn’t it? It’s not like I would be checking them or anything.” He smiled politely around. “No more questions? Okay then, let’s start. It’s best you have the most time possible for this exam.”

-xxxxx-

James’s mind was buzzing.

He sighed as he stumbled onto the rooftop. The day had been another long one…

He sat down beside the biology unit’s orchids, placed there specifically because this building was the tallest in the college. The wind, especially strong today, blew over them as James looked, ruffling his hair. His glasses shielded his eyes from the wind pressure.

The sun was setting. Its rays painted the skyscrapers and buildings a vivid orange—just like James always saw, whenever he went up here when he was stressed.

Today, he wasn’t stressed… just dizzy. He removed his glasses and kneaded his temples gently, trying to relieve the pain. James stood, and attempted to walk it off.

He stopped at the edge of the building and looked up. There was a chopper noisily moving through the clouds. James instinctively identified its parts. Hewas an aeronautics student, after all…

He looked down at the ground. From here, the people looked like bugs.

If only people could fly, aeronautic scientists wouldn’t be needed at all.

…Good thing people couldn’t fly.

A cat meowed behind him, and he jumped.

But he didn’t come down.

The cat looked on as the tall human flayed his feet wildly, trying to touch the floor again. When his shoe finally connected to the ground, the human collapsed on his back. The cat ran away with a loud mew.

James’s eyes grew wide with shock, and he said aloud, “OH, MAN!”

He fumed for a couple of seconds, annoyance and amusement etched into his face.

“James.”

He whipped around, and relaxed when he saw who it was. “Hey, Sandro.”

“I heard you yell,” Sandro said. “What happened?”

James opened his mouth to answer, but decided against it. “Oh, I just saw a cat and almost fell.”

-xxxxx-

As his eyes snapped open, he yelled as loud as he could.

The doctor beside him covered her ears. “So, this one has a really loud voice?”

A familiar voice laughed. “No, if that was the case, you’d be deaf by now, Gillian.”

“That’s Dr. Pascasio to you.”

Gene sat upright, and immediately felt his a pang in his head. “Can’t believe I’m asking this for the second time, but where am I?”

“In a containment unit. Just protocol. At least it’s not a clinic.”

The girl with the black jacket was sitting on a chair next to him, her hood lowered, showing her unusual, powder green eyes. He looked around, and the unit was empty except for them.

“I’ll leave him in your hands?” Dr. Pascasio adjusted her lab coat; the girl nodded.

Gene plopped back to the pillows in resignation, as the doctor left. “Come to think of it, I never got your name.”

“I’m Bianca.”

“Do you… y’know…”

“Have a power? Yes. I’m psychometric.”

“What’s that?”

“I can find out the past and future of things within a short range. The most I’ve reached was about a meter, but I think I can reach farther. The nearer it is, the faster I can know.”

Gene tried to measure the distance between them at the time. She laughed. He seemed to recall she was blind. How did she do that?

“Everything whispers to me. I hear them all, but I can…turn the volume up on a specific one, would you say. It’s different from mind reading, but it helps. I can gauge personalities from past events.”

“That’s…”

“It’s not as nice as you’d expect. I learn a lot of stuff that people would rather not have me know. It takes time to read through everything, you know. A lot of time. Ironically, the more people want to hide it, the louder it yells out to me.”

“But how come you can move around so easily? I mean, you told me you’re blind.”

“Er, psychometry too. The nearer it is, the faster it talks to me, remember? And from its past, I can guess what it is. It’s made me think fast on my feet many, many times.” She stood up. “It’s also the reason why I cover my eyes outside of the Company building. I look unusual. Either that, or someone comes with me and pretends to guide me.”

“S-so… do you have an idea what my ability is?” Gene asked, nervously, but also excited. She paced back and forth at the foot of his bed.

“Temperature manipulation. You can make anything hotter or colder. You’ve been on our list for a long time, but today was the first time it manifested. We had to get you before anyone else noticed. The Company aims to keep posthumans secret from the world.”

“I’m just going to stay here?”

“You can choose to go back to society, but you’ll have to stay here for a while. Control your ability, and such. You can opt to become an agent, too.”

“That’d be AWESOME!” He lit up right away. “You mean it?” The room thermometer by the door showed a slowly rising temperature. Gene struggled to lower it again.

Bianca listened to the thermometer beep as it followed the wandering temperature around, and said nonchalantly, “Well, of course. I think your power will be quite useful.”

“I agree! Hell, yes!”

“You’re an enthusiastic one. So, let me tell you first that I’m the head of this branch of the Company.”

“This branch? There’s more?”

“Yes.” Bianca’s lips tightened. “The Company was founded by my uncle, David.”

“Then why are you heading a separate branch?”

“Headquarters was destroyed a few months back by an, er, shadow manipulator.”

“Why doesn’t the rest of the Company move in with this one?”

“Uncle’s part of the Company is much, much bigger; we won’t fit. Personally, I only know the High Executives and some of the agents. The rest, Uncle won’t let me see. Even though I’m his niece. But our aims are the same.” She paused. Gene thought he heard her mutter, ‘and then some’. “Now, that’s enough about me. It’s protocol to pair you up with a more experienced agent to help you with things.”

She reached for the phone beside Gene’s bed and dialed a short number. “Hello, Stephen? Is Pia training? … Can I talk to her?” Gene mouthed, ‘A girl?’ She nodded. “Ah, Agent Patron. It’s been a long time since you mentored a rookie, hasn’t it?”

-xxxxx-

The class was already sweating, silently cursing the lack of wind. Ancer paced the aisles of students, peering over their shoulders and looking away when they noticed.

The first bell rang. Most of the students groaned. “Five minutes.”

And then, suddenly, inexplicably, there was a flash of light. It seemed like lightning in the classroom—the students gasped, but Ancer looked towards the fluorescent lights.

The light flashed again, less intense this time. Ancer saw that the fluorescent lights remained dim. Once he had assured that, he tried to calm the students down. “It’s just the lights malfunctioning,” he said in a loud voice. “Continue with your exams.”

Once he had finished collecting the papers, he went out into the corridor and whipped out his phone. “Bianca, I’ve found Jadee. She’s coming over to your branch, isn’t she?”

“Yes, Uncle is still over at Ms. Yu’s..”

Ancer sighed. “So, Jadee?”

“She’s, um…?”

Ancer rolled his eyes. “The new photokinetic.”

“Ah, I remember.”

“Send someone ASAP, won’t you? She might be a bit unstable after that shock.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m already here anyway.”

-xxxxx-

Bianca ended the call, and turned to face the expectant brown eyes of the man standing in front of her. “Ancer.”

He returned a blank stare. “Since you couldn’t see me—”

“Agent Ancer Villacruel from the main branch. He’s a teacher in Pisay Ilocos, asked by the Company to observe a student manifesting posthuman possibilities.”

“And?”

“He asked for an agent to take her back. Could I ask for Olin?”

“Isn’t he a bit too powerful for a photokinetic?”

“Ancer has his reasons to worry. I trust him; he’s more experienced than either of us. Olin is the fastest way, seeing as how our other disabler is at an invention company now.”

“That agent—Ancer, was it? He said the ‘new’ photokinetic? There’s another one?”

“Yeah. Candelen Dacalos, though her data is on a need-to-know basis. Their powers will differ, but not by much.”

She followed him back to the training hall, and approached a boy seated on the side.

“Agent Tamayo, you have a mission. Pisay Ilocos. Agent Villacruel will tell you the rest.”

“No problem.” He stood up and went to the changing rooms.

“Stephen,” Bianca said, turning back to her other companion, “How’s Gene doing?”

“Tired, as is everyone on their first day,” Stephen said uninterestedly, “But Agent Patron’s helping him, of course. How can you call everyone by their first names and get away with it?”

She smirked. “They never banned it.”

“Gene’s still getting over Pia’s power, though,” Stephen said. “You should have told him about her powers or something. Watching someone turn ten years younger is always scary the first time around.”

“Watching her turn ten years older is even harder. And he hasn’t seen Javi blow up yet.”

“Whatever. I’ll do it later.”

On cue, an explosion boomed right below them.

Stephen remained undisturbed. “Sometimes I wonder why they placed the training hall above his lab…”

Bianca went to calm down some of the newer agents, who had panicked. A soot-covered guy in a lab gown stumbled into the hall. When he spotted Stephen, he smiled.

“What is it now?”

“Stuff. I can’t remember. But it was AWESOME!”

Stephen scoffed, though still, he smiled.

-xxxxx-

 “Bianca?”

A girl, taller than her by a few inches, approached. “Hey, Pardau. Where’ve you been?”

“Trying to convince Agent Sugay to get the waterbreather from Quezon City.”

“Stephen? He agreed?”

“Not at first, but you know him, he always takes persuading. But he agreed in the end, of course. He was the one who first talked to the waterbreather eight months ago.”

Bianca looked in Pardau’s direction, forgetting that most agents hated it when she did that. “It’s been eight months? He’s taken some time to decide, eh?”

“Javi was reluctant at first. Stephen too, albeit being powerless.”

“You don’t consider his taekwondo black belt to be a power? No one in our branch—perhaps even in the Company— can knock him down without using their abilities. Which is exactly why the Company hired him.”

“Agent Publico!”

She grimaced as she turned around to face an eager agent, followed by a sheepish-looking college student in glasses.

“How many times should I tell you, Dave, call me by my first name, please?”

“Oh, sorry. Well, anyway, here he is!” He gestured to the college student. “He’s James.”

“The flight guy, if I remember right?” Pardau asked. Dave nodded. “Doesn’t one of the Company leaders also fly?”

“Iego? Yes. But he sprouts wings. James doesn’t. He… levitates, more like. Ironic, actually. You’re an aeronautics student, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am. How did you know?”

“I’ll explain that to you, and everything else, in my office. Come along,” Pardau ushered James along, knowingly taking over his orientation because Bianca had already oriented Gene. This left Bianca and Dave in the corridor.

“How’d you bring him in?”

“Oh, he agreed pretty easily.”

“Because you hypnotized him.”

“Well, just at the end,” Dave said, his eyes changing color, from electric blue to vivid purple to a striking bloodred. Bianca, being blind, didn’t see its hypnotizing effects. “He was a bit reluctant to go here. Anyway, how come you never mentor anyone?”

“Oh, I did once.”

“Just once?”

“Yep.”

Dave waited for an elaboration, but she smiled smugly at him, daring him to ask. He scoffed. “You know I hate it when you flaunt your power.”

- - - - -

And there’s nothing wrong with me

This is how I’m s’posed to be

In a land of make believe

They don’t believe in me

- Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day

End of Episode 2.