She told me to get dressed. Dutifully I walked over to my closet and took out a clean tunic set and put them on. I followed as she turned to leave the room. As we passed through the doorway, I felt a strange buzz of electricity. Startled, I stopped. I turned and went back into my room as Roberta looked at me strangely. The buzz only happened as I passed through the door, not in the room or out in the hall. Something electronic had been set in place while I slept.

“Come now,” Roberta said, and I caught up to her in the hall. I kept my eyes forward as we stood in front of the elevator and waited for it. Sometimes there were other people on the lift when we were about to get on, we always waited until it was empty to ride.

As we got on, I felt the same buzz as I had in the doorway of my room. I realized there was some kind of increased security now, perhaps that was what was bothering Roberta. The elevator was going up this time, that meant we were going to the labs. I didn’t enjoy this at all, I would be poked and prodded, have my blood and other samples taken. It also gave me a chance to find out more of why they were doing this to me.

We entered the lab, the buzz going off as we walked through the door. A different tech came over to us and led me to a curtained off room. Roberta stayed with me. She took my clothes from me as I picked up the paper robe that I would wear during the inspection. I climbed up on the table and sat down. I sent out my thoughts to find the tech that was reading my chart. When I found him, I looked out through his eyes to read along with him.

The small holoscreen hovered above his desk. At the top of the page he was reading, I saw the words shark, octopus and starfish. That part made no sense. I read farther down, it was mostly prior test results. He turned the page, and there were the notes. I read quickly, and not knowing how fast the tech could read, I wanted to absorb it all before another page was turned.

They had been watching me more closely than I had thought. I scanned down the page. They knew of some of my kinetic abilities, and there were notes about how I had not shown any signs of certain qualities they had expected by now. When I had reached puberty four years ago, they had been excited to see what new talents would appear. I had known by then that I was different, but I also knew that I didn't want them to know too much about what I could do. That was when I had found out about the cameras in my room. They had asked questions about what I could do and told me that they knew of the things that I had tried to keep hidden.

I had kept them busy with mostly the telekinesis. They seemed very impressed with that. I kept hidden just how large a thing I could move, they were satisfied with me moving blocks and small items. I kept hidden the hydrokinesis and the neurokinesis. Those were the things I did not want them to know. I suddenly wondered what the others in my group were capable of. How much did these scientists know about what they could do? I didn’t know if the others were as suspicious as I was or if they had given up all their talents.

The tech closed the screen and stood up. I quickly pulled back to my own mind and looked over at Roberta. She was sitting in the chair next to the bed, staring at the door. I sat up straighter as the tech pushed the curtain aside and came in. The tray next to the bed had all the tools he would need to take the blood from me. When the blood was drawn, he took out a light and checked my eyes. I couldn’t keep my second eyelids from opening and closing, the light was too bright. I hated this part of the exam.

It was finally over, I was allowed to dress and Roberta took me back to my room. My door opened and I turned back to her and asked,” What’s wrong?” She looked startled, I rarely spoke to anyone except to give answers to direct questions.

“Nothing, dear, nothing is wrong. Don’t worry about it,” she replied and turned away, leaving me standing at my door.

I walked inside, and the door shut behind me. I stood by the doorway for a moment, trying to locate the source of the buzz. I could feel a signal about three feet up from the floor on the door jamb. There was a matching signal on the opposite side. That was where the buzz was coming from, a faint line of light going from each sensor, creating the noise when the line was broken. Now that I knew what was there, I could disable it without them knowing. I checked higher, just in case there were more sensors and found another set right at my eye level.

I wondered if they had found out somehow that we were planning on sneaking out. The buzz was not audible, I felt it on my skin. I don’t think that they knew that I had that ability, but now I could not be sure, after reading all the notes that they had on me.

In my room, I went over to my table, where the drawing I had made yesterday still sat. I found some tape in one of my drawers and put the picture up on my wall. I couldn’t stand the lack of color in this place, so my walls were covered with drawing, mostly in bright colors. Some of them were darker, from things that I had dreamed about but had never actually seen. After I got the picture up, I took out more paper and my paints. I wanted to feel the colors brush across the paper and the best way to feel was through the paint.

While I painted, I contacted Liam and Lira. I warned them about the sensors that had been put into the thresholds of all the doors. I asked them about what other skills they had, and how much the scientists and tech knew about their abilities. Liam had been as cautious as I was , but Lira had let them know about nearly all of her skills. Luckily, she didn’t have anything that could cause us any danger, but it would leave her more likely to be blamed for any discretions that may occur. That would be our incentive to not be discovered. I wondered about the others in our group. They had probably been as dutiful and compliant as Lira. I sent her a mental warning not to let them know any more than they did already. She sent back agreement. She gave off a sense of excitement and I had a sudden sense of what if this was a set up? In my mind I gave her a warning, I didn’t want to be constantly worried about her loyalty.

Liam was more like me than I realized. I wondered for a moment if we could possibly have been twins. He looked a lot like me, our skin tones and hair colors matched as if we were related. He even had the double eyelids like I did. He also had my suspicious nature.

It was almost time for classes to start, so I put my paints away and cleaned my brushes. I washed my hands and sat down on my chair to wait for my escort. The digital clock above the door showed five minutes until the person would arrive. After lessons today, and after the last meal of the day, I was going to be turning off the cameras so that I could look through my secret treasures. I had a real paper book in there that I needed to find something in. Information that I needed for the adventure we were planning for tomorrow night.

A different technician arrived to take me to classes. This one was called John, but I knew that wasn’t his real name. His true name was Michael, and he sweated a lot. He was always very nervous. The fear rolled off of him so thickly that I had to keep my shields up. I got the impression from him that he wasn’t supposed to be here, that he was doing something wrong. I hadn’t gone into his mind to find out why, he had only been here for a few weeks, and I wasn’t as comfortable with him as I was with Roberta, who had been here for years.

In the Study room, we were given our work to do, today’s lesson seemed only to keep us busy, too simple to challenge any of us. The teacher stayed behind a desk, glancing at each of us in turn and then writing notes.