Chapter 3

Precognition at PE

Thian was happy to learn that Tamora was in the same PE class with him. There were 90 minutes before lunch, and he'd bought a Rock Star energy drink so he was going to be surprisingly spry during the period. They were playing Badminton this quarter.
Outside of the locker room, Tamora, Thian and two more friends of Thian, Kyra Vulpes and Jeff Thayer, hung back after they had changed into their PE clothes.
"Hey, Tamora," said Kyra with little inflection in her voice. "I'm not looking forward to PE today."
"Guess what Thian did in Physics today," she said.
"Sang Radiohead in public?" Kyra asked.
"No, but he has," said Tamora, failing to suppress a laugh. "Thian can teleport."
"No way," said Kyra. "Does he have any other powers?"
"Telepathy," she said. Thian felt smug about the fact that he had two powers, although he wished he could actually understand how he was supposed to use them.
"Impressive," said Kyra. "I am an empath, myself. I can make people feel how I want them to. Normally, I can just make people depressed if I'm feeling really depressed subconsciously, but I can also make someone irrationally scared, or really calm. That and I can turn into a wolf."
"Woah," Thian said as he popped the tab of his Rock Star. "So how many of us are there?" He was hesitant to use the word 'mutant', just in case it was too clichéd.
"I'm one," said Jeff Thayer in a scratchy, hoarse voice. "I can make stuff happen, usually with my mind, usually when I'm angry."
A psychopath telepath, Thian sent to Tamora, desperate for secrecy.
Something like, Tamora sent back to him. She grabbed for Thian's Rock Star and looked at it.
"What's this?"
"Energy drink," Thian said.
"Is it good?" asked Tamora and she drank some. "Blegh!"
"You don't like?"
"Not really," she said, and she tasted it again. "It makes my mouth feel weird."
"I've been having some pretty cool dreams," said Jeff disconnectedly. Thian and Tamora looked at Jeff interestedly. Kyra had already been in sync with him, as she always seemed to be. "I think they might be precognitions, because I get them really randomly, and they've all been coming to me the past few days."
"Like what?" Kyra asked.
"Like destruction, at the school," said Jeff. "High pitched laughter, and alarms."
"I have been getting the same thing," admitted Kyra. "But I always imagine pitch darkness, then purple, then the alarms."
"Purple?" Tamora asked. "That's weird."
"Honestly, I never took them for precogs," said Thian as they walked to the badminton courts. Tamora nodded. "What are your thoughts?"
"It's happening today," said Tamora. "I've known for a long time something was happening today. I was prepared to believe it was meeting you, but I know these precognitions are connected."
Tamora seemed distracted for the rest of the class, but Thian was well able to make up for her lack of concentration on the court, where they played against the duo of Jeff and Kyra, thanks to the energy boost he'd gotten from the energy drink.
10 minutes before class ended, however, Tamora pulled Thian away from the badminton courts, and they went into the girl's locker room. Thian felt out of place and wrong, as he usually felt, so he ignored the feeling.
"Thian, we've got to find someone who matches the clues we have," said Tamora as she unlocked her locker. "There might be some way of stopping this."
"Isn't trying to stop the culprit the number one way of the thing actually being carried out?" Thian asked.
"You know, you might be right," she said, "but I think this is a mutant that could be very, very destructive." She pulled off her shirt and rummaged through her backpack for her long-sleeve. Thian feigned distractedness, although he was actually, definitely turned on by the fact that she was now in a bra and panties.
He had the very right feeling that she wouldn't have changed in front of him had these not been distressing circumstances and the fact that she was somewhat distracted.
"We're going to look for him when lunch starts," said Tamora. "Now get out! You still have to change and they've just been let off for lunch."
Thian hesitantly teleported into the boy's locker room, changed into his regular clothes and teleported back into the girl's locker room.
"We should teleport out," said Thian.
Tamora pulled on her pants and her shoes, grabbed her backpack, and Thian made sure he was ready to go before he grabbed Tamora close to him and teleported them to the girl's bathroom by the lunch line.