“Alright, get them up,” Harding said.

Kira moved down the aisle of the plane, touching each unconscious super and waking them immediately.

“Listen carefully,” Harding said in a loud voice once all the supers were awake. “There’s been an incident here at the Cain Center. The other supers that were here have been either killed or kidnapped and we may be targeted next. I need all of you to follow me and do as I say. No questions, no complaining. We don’t have the time. Come on.”

With that he turned on his heel and began leading them all out of the plane. I’d been standing behind him during his brief speech and now hurried to get out of his way.

“We’re going to Cain Hall,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “It’s defensible and we’ll hunker down there while we work on getting another plane or boat here to pick us up.”

A few of the new supers muttered the expected questions about why they needed a boat or a plane since they were supposed to be in Virginia but Harding ignored them.

“The front doors are pretty destroyed,” I reminded Harding.

“You think you can bend them back into place?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I shrugged, “but I don’t know how we’ll attach them to anything.”

“We’ll deal with that when we get to it. In the mean time, I want you to get back to searching the island. We need to find how they’re jamming us.”

“You could fly around and see if there’s a boat nearby,” Kira observed. “Then at least we’d know if the jamming signal is coming from here.”

“I’m not the best flier in the world,” Harding grunted, “and if they have a sniper on board their boat I’d be a pretty easy target.”

“They did have snipers before,” I said.

“If we had a better healer I might be willing to risk it, but not yet. Let’s finish searching the island first.”

He made a shooing motion with his hand towards me and I broke off from the main group once we reached the checkpoint to resume my search.

“Oh, take this,” Harding said and tossed me a small hand radio.

“Will this work?” I asked.

“It’s for once you find the source of the signal and shut it off.”

I nodded and set to work. One good thing that had come of all this was that Denise had actually taught me some things about performing a search. I moved around in a grid pattern. It was slow and monotonous work but I was thorough. I checked all along the road the rest of the way back up to the airport and the northern docks but found nothing. I searched the buildings as well and finished just as the sun was beginning to set. I didn’t have anything to use for light so I headed back to Cain Hall before it grew too dark.

“I assume you didn’t find anything,” Harding said as I walked up to the building.

“Nothing,” I replied, “but there’s a lot more island to search. So far I’ve only checked the buildings and along the main roads.”

“I didn’t expect you to find anything there,” Harding admitted. “They probably stashed it somewhere in the forest, if it’s even on the island.”

“You really think they have a boat just sitting out there?” I asked.

“No,” he admitted. “but until we search the island we won’t know for sure. Now, how about getting these doors back in place?” He gestured to the two blasted doors that were warped and twisted, still lying on the ground where they’d landed after blowing up on me.

Just pressing down on them wasn’t going to flatten them out since they just rocked back and forth. I ended up standing on one end and pressing out the wrinkles as though I were trying to get a fitted sheet to lay flat on a mattress. It worked, albeit imperfectly. The metal tore in a few places and it whined loudly the entire time but eventually I had them both mostly back into shape.

“Just brace them in place for now,” Harding said. “They’re heavy enough that only you and a few other supers will have an easy time of moving them.”

I picked up the first door and, with some trial and effort, managed to wedge it into place where it wasn’t at risk of falling over. Harding went inside as I picked up the second door.

“Close us in,” he said.

It was trickier to place the door from the inside but like the first I managed to find a position where it was sturdy enough that it wasn’t going to fall over.

“There’s still plenty of gaps around these,” I observed, poking my hand out through one of them.

“Well it’s better than nothing,” Harding grunted. “You hungry?”

“Starved, but don’t we need to be rationing what’s left?”

“Kira knows a thing or two about foraging and a lot of the plants on the island are edible so she and some of the others students went out while you were gone and gathered a good amount. Should have dinner about ready.”

I followed him into the cafeteria and, as promised, there was a decent spread of leaves, roots, and berries. Some had been cooked into a stew while others were made into a salad and all of it was a bit more earthy tasting than I was used to but by no means was it bad. I had seconds and then thirds. As I ate I looked around at the other supers. They were huddled together around Kira and reminded me of a hen and her chicks. Of course, in this case the chicks were all deadly in some way or another. I could see sparks popping off of one of them from time to time while another wore a mask similar to Emil.

“How’re they all doing?” I asked Harding.

“A bit shell shocked,” he replied. “Bit of a surprise to wake up and not only find out they’re not in Virginia like we’d told them, but that they were in danger of being killed or kidnapped. Overall they’re handling it well.”

“I was thinking they could help me with the search tomorrow,” I said. “I could cover a lot more ground if I had some help.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” he nodded. “Give them something to do as well. There’s nothing better for the nerves than keeping busy with a project.”

“Any powers I should be aware of?” I asked.

“You got sparky and poison gas over there,” he pointed to the two I’d already picked out. “Then there’s one who’s voice will rip the skin off most people’s bones. If they whisper it only causes bruising. I expect you’ll be fine with them though. Then there’s a pair of speedsters who can break the sound barrier. Twins, go figure. And finally there’s the girl there who turns into a big monster if she gets too upset. Goes berserk for a few minutes and then passes out. Wakes up an hour later with no memory of what she did.”

“Fun group,” I said.

“Could’ve been a worse group, could’ve been better, but it’s who we’ve got.”

“You think we can use the speedsters to search the island?” I asked.

“They can help, but only at normal speeds,” Harding said, shaking his head. “If they’re moving fast and trip, there’ll be nothing left but a greasy streak a mile long. If we had someone more experienced, maybe, but uneven ground is a speedster’s worst nightmare.”

“I take it they’re not durable?”

“Not usually, which is a big weakness for them. They run into anything they’re not expecting, or trip, and that can be the end for them.”

I thought for a moment and then a new question came to mind.

“If they aren’t durable, how do they handle wind resistance?”

“No idea,” Harding admitted. “You’d think since they aren’t affected by the air when they run that they could handle a little tree branch to the face, but that’s not the case.”

“Weird.”

“That’s supers for you. Full of contradiction.”