Swimming turned out to be easy. Javelin throw, however, needed time and work - especially on Sunday mornings, when Brahampton had its only timeslot for the sport. There were only so many times when the stadium was empty enough that you could practice throwing a sharp object through the air without risking hitting other runners.

I still made it a point to go. The $20 per session was worth it - thanks to my strength, it only took me a few weeks to get to the point where my javelins cross the 50 metre mark.

SKILL UNLOCKED: JAVELIN STRIKE.

JAVELIN STRIKE: HURL A SPEAR OR OTHER WEAPON AT A DISTANT TARGET. THE STRENGTH AND DEXTERITY YOU BRING TO BEAR AFFECT THE RANGE AND THE DAMAGE TO TARGET.

SKILL TREE: RANGED COMBAT.

JAVELIN STRIKE CAN BE ADAPTED TO SPECIAL JAVELINS, SPEARS, ROCKETS, OR ANY AERODYNAMIC THROWN WEAPON WITH A TIP OR WARHEAD.

LEVEL 1: BOOSTS DAMAGE 300%, 70% CHANCE TO HIT. COST: 50 AP.

Level 1 gave a 300% boost to damage?

What would Level 9 do?

I kept using Prophet’s Roulette, day after day. Some days it didn’t work and left me with the mind-crushing headache. However, since my use of it focused on understanding the nature of my power, it didn’t trigger the warnings and penalties that my first misuse of it had.

On a few days, the information provided was truly useful.

I discovered that Persuasion Points were the result of multiplying my Perception by the sum of my Charisma and Luck. So, with my Perception of 13, Charisma of 10 and Luck of 9, I was getting 247 points of Persuasion.

It made sense, since persuading people in real life depended on how well you could read them (perception), how much they liked you (charisma), and a little bit of luck.

Control Points, similarly, were the result of multiplying my Charisma by the sum of my Attractiveness and Luck. 10 Charisma, 9 luck and 14 attractiveness gave me 230 Control points - which I still didn’t know how to use.

In fairness, using them still seemed creepy and invasive.

It was more than two weeks after I’d started school that I discovered the information I was looking for through Prophet’s Roulette:

HEALING SKILL TREE:

- FIRST AID

- FIELD SURGERY

- HEAL

- CLEANSE TOXINS

- CURE

- REVIVE

- RESTORE ORGAN

Would I have to get the skills in sequence?

The next Prophet’s Roulette answered that question with a resounding YES.

Which meant I really needed to double down on Biology.

Art class was harder to master at first, since I was - essentially - touching watercolours for the first time. However, like most other things, it got easier quite rapidly.

I decided to do a painting of the city skyline as seen from Pendleton for my main project.

Within two weeks, I’d completed the painting, which Mrs. Burroughs had pronounced adequate. The +1 to Dexterity turned out to be quite useful, advancing my AP to 156.

Finding a topic for a sculpture turned out to be harder. I'd thought of doing a sculpture of the Sarnak, but Mrs. Burroughs shot the idea down immediately.

"You want to inspire in art, not terrify," she pointed out. "Plenty of people find the aliens…. traumatizing."

So I decided to do a sculpture of Skymaster, the first hero.

On 14th January, 2060, Skymaster had been the first hero to use his powers in public - by levitating, flying around, and performing mid-air acrobatics in front of a crowd of over a thousand people. These were the early days, before the aliens had attacked and forever changed the nature of our world.

Skymaster had begun the tradition of masks, capes, and secret identities. He'd been a vocal advocate of separating an ultrahuman's masked identity from his real identity, and driven the idea that ultrahumans were not soldiers for a particular nation, but servants to all mankind. Many of his ideas had influenced the CJM. Some even suggested he might have actually helped write it, at least in his civilian identity. (Which was still a secret.)

And when aliens had attacked, he had been right there defending mankind, up until he fell in battle on July 7th, 2062.

Mrs. Burroughs approved the new subject. "You'll have to choose which moment of his life you want to sculpt," she advised. "Pick one that's been photographed extensively."

Skymaster's most famous speech was at Washington, where he promised to fight the aliens for the first time. And called on others to do so, too. "If you have power," he'd said, "you owe it to others to keep them safe, by standing between them and their enemies."

It was called the Standing Between speech, and it had been photographed by thousands.

It was the moment I chose to sculpt.

On weekends after javelin or archery practice, I would tinker with the broken armour and rifles. Studying them gave me ideas of how to create armour for myself, which would both conceal my identity and provide more health points to absorb the damage from an enemy. However, I couldn’t figure out how to make it myself.

It was only when Mechanic advanced to Level 10 that I got a hint of what I needed.

MECHANIC ADVANCES TO LEVEL 10. 1 OF 4 PREREQUISITES FOR POWERED COMBAT ARMOR UNLOCKED.

QUEST ALERT: ARMOR UP!

UNLOCK THE SKILL: POWERED ARMOR FORGING

ALLOWS YOU TO CREATE POWERED COMBAT ARMOUR.

PREREQUISITES:

MECHANIC LEVEL 10 ELECTRONIC ARTS LEVEL 10 EXPLOSIVES LEVEL 5 UNKNOWN SKILL - UNKNOWN LEVEL

REWARD: +1000 XP, NEW SKILLS UNLOCKED.

The words that had me hooked were 'powered combat armour'.

Powered armour was a staple of Inventors, the tool that allowed them to fight both aliens and super-strong or super-fast ultrahumans on even terms. Inventors could forge armour for not just themselves, but - on occasion - for others too.

Grumman’s greatest strength as an ultrahuman was the sheer quantity of powered armour he could create. Most inventors could make - and maintain - one or two sets, each heavily customized to the wearer. Grumman made - and maintained - dozens.

That was why the Grunters had evolved from just a street gang to a force that the local police - and even some military units - would think twice about confronting.

But getting to the point where I could forge my own armour would be a long journey.

Having achieved Level 10 in Mechanic, I had a sense of how long the other skills might take. At least months. And that was assuming I got as much practice with Electronic Arts as with Mechanic.

I had no idea where to get expertise in Explosives.

Or how to figure out the Unknown Skill.

Well, it would come in time…. Hopefully.

Meanwhile, I kept making bows.

My first session at the archery club had been cut short when I pulled too hard on my store-bought bow. It had snapped like a twig.

Since then, I’d been making my own bows, generally out of wood. Which wasn’t hard to get, in plank form, from the hardware store.

Mechanic helped me make some decent bows, although the stats weren’t too great:

HOMEMADE HEAVY BOW

REQUIREMENTS: STR 12, DEX 12

DAMAGE: 10

Not as awesome as the sledgehammer or the nailgun, but good enough for practice.

That practice came in the form of Mike’s archery club on Saturdays, which also unlocked a couple of useful skills.

DEADLY SHOT: +50 AP, A GUARANTEED HIT ON A WEAK SPOT ON AN ENEMY.

SNIPER SHOT: 20 - 100 AP. GUARANTEED HIT ON AN ENEMY WITH A RANGED WEAPON. DAMAGE DEPENDS ON TARGET LEVEL AND WEAPON QUALITY.

At least the next time I had to fight aliens, it would be with a gun. And a sledgehammer, for close combat.

No more hubcaps.

Shop class - or as it was called, Industrial Arts - honed my Mechanic skills even further.

My project also helped.

I’d decided to make a small robotic hand, based on the instructions in our textbook. The code was relatively easy, as were the electronic components - all off the shelf. The tricky part was machining the parts to fit correctly, which was where things generally went wrong for most of the people who tried the project.

My robotic hand could pick up a marble, lift it, and drop in in a container.

When I showed the hand to Lou, he had only one question:

"Can you make it fight?"

I shook my head. "Anything more complicated than moving a marble and the code breaks."

"Pity. Michael Vickers made a walking set. Refitted some garden gnomes and gave them robotic arms and feet."

"Wow, that's impressive."

"Yeah, and he got them to do a duel with toy lightsabers."

"Damn."

"So you're going to have to up your game to beat him."

"I'm not trying to beat Michael Vickers."

"Whatever you say, man."

Jimmy and Mike made polite noises when they saw the robotic hand, of course, but after Vickers' display - which I had somehow missed - the marble-dropping device was a tad underwhelming. Even Mr. Goldfarb, the teacher, uttered no more than a polite 'hmm' when I turned it in.

The opinion that mattered most, though, was that of my power.

QUEST COMPLETED! TURN IT ON, SEE IF IT SMOKES.

SKILL UPGRADE: MECHANIC LEVEL 12.

SKILL UNLOCKED: ELECTRONIC ARTS.

LEVEL 1: YOU CAN PROGRAM BASIC FUNCTIONALITY INTO A MICROPROCESSOR, FIX A CIRCUIT BOARD, OR INCORPORATE ELECTRONIC CONTROLS INTO EQUIPMENT. DON’T TRY ANYTHING TOO COMPLICATED, THOUGH.

BONUS REWARDS DENIED. MAYBE SOMETHING MORE IMPRESSIVE NEXT TIME?

.... Thanks a lot, power.