I wondered what the others must be thinking as I stumbled into the third set of explosives. The force of it ripped through my jumpsuit, again, and when the dust cleared my legs were already blossoming a nice group of bruises. I had to be getting close, with all these traps around, but I was getting tired of them. My ears were ringing and my nose started bleeding shortly after the third trap went off. I hadn’t noticed this one in time and triggered it without meaning to and took the full brunt of the blast.

I wiped at my nose without meaning to and smeared my face with blood.

“Great,” I said to myself before pressing on ahead, not bothering to get a new jumpsuit just yet.

The day was wearing on and the valley below was already in shadow. Standing on the ridge as I was I could still see the sun, poking between the trees as it neared the horizon. Whenever I got a peek at the ocean I tried to see if there were any boats out there but it was always just waves as far as I could see.

I stopped beside a tree to rest. I was a bit dizzy and tired and wiped my nose again without thinking. Now both my hands were bloody and I could only imagine what my face must look like. I found a cool spot on the tree’s bark that felt good on my head. As I leaned there, the tree began to lean to the side, farther and farther. I tried to catch myself and stop pushing the tree over but I was already losing my balance. I heard an almighty snap and both the tree and I tumbled to the ground. Something metallic twanged as the tree rolled away and looking around I saw a bundle of wires caught up around the broken trunk connected to an antenna that had been ripped off a nearby tree.

“That was lucky,” I said.

Following the wires back into the underbrush, they lead me to a metal box that had been wrenched out of a shallow pit that had been hidden with some fallen branches.

The box was about two feet long on each side and a foot tall. There was a lock on the lid but that didn’t pose any obstacle to me. I peeled off the outer cover and found the battery and radio equipment inside. There wasn’t an obvious power button or switch so I just disconnected the battery. That done, I tucked it all under my arm and began trekking back the way I’d come. With my free hand I pulled out the walkie talkie Harding had given me.

“Harding, you hear me?” I spoke into it.

“Loud and clear,” came his response a few seconds later, sounding pleasantly surprised. “I’ll have the pilots get on their radios in the airplane and call for assistance. You get back here.”

“Already on my way,” I said. “Have Kira ready for me,” I added. “That last explosion actually hurt a little.”

“Copy that, Kira will meet you in the cafeteria.”

“Thanks, uh, over and out I guess.”

I didn’t know how else to end the conversation but that seemed to work. I tucked the walkie talkie into a pocket and made my way back to the bag of spare jumpsuits. I changed one last time into a fresh set and then turned down towards the valley. Soon I was enveloped in twilight and the temperature began to drop. It didn’t get cold since we were very much in the tropics but it wasn’t as hot. I used a bit of scrap cloth from one of the blasted jumpsuits to wipe my face. There wasn’t much I could do about the dried blood but I could at least staunch the flow of fresh blood coming from my nose. It wasn’t pouring down or anything like that, just a steady drip that only started to let up when Cain Hall came into view.

With the building still in lockdown there were only a few slivers of light visible from behind the metal shutters. The front doors, such as they were, let the most light out and it spilled across the steps and into the lawn. Harding stood in the gap, casting his own shadow outward.

“You look a right mess,” he chuckled. “What’d you do, stick your face into one of the bombs?”

Kira poked her head out from behind Harding and was much kinder.

“Let’s get you healed and then you can clean up,” she said, stepping out.

She placed a hand on me and I waited. It was only then that I realized the ringing in my ears had already stopped, as had my nose bleed. The aches and pains in my legs were also already gone.

“I’m not finding much to heal,” Kira stated, confused.

“I swear I had bruises all up and down my legs,” I said, “but yeah, I feel fine now.”

I poked at my legs and they didn’t feel tender or sensitive.

“Would you mind rolling up your pant leg for me?” Kira asked.

I did and exposed healthy, unbruised skin.

“That was purple an hour ago,” I assured her.

“I believe you,” Kira nodded. “I think you might have some accelerated healing abilities.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised.

“Nothing too powerful,” she calmed my excitement, “but enough that most minor injuries should heal within a few hours or a day.”

“Don’t let it make you careless,” Harding warned. “I’ve known supers that could self heal that got themselves wrecked by taking chances the shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t mean to walk into those explosions,” I said.

“Not saying you did, just saying to be careful.”

“Okay, well, do you want this?” I offered him the box I’d been carrying. “It’s the jamming device,” I added when he gave me a puzzled look.

“Oh, yeah, bring that inside and I’ll take a look.”

The three of us went in and I set the box down on one of the cafeteria tables. Kira went and brought me over my meal, lasagna and mashed potatoes. I couldn’t help but notice the looks some of the other supers were giving me as all they had to eat was what Kira had foraged, which was mostly boiled roots and leaves again.

“…not fair…” I heard coming from a group of them.

“What’s that?” Harding barked, apparently having heard them too. “You don’t think it’s fair she gets a hot meal? What have you done today? Next time you can be the one to get blown up three times and then find the source of the jamming signal all on your own and then we can talk about a hot meal for you.”

“But it’s no big deal for her,” the super replied.

“Look at her face,” Harding pointed at me and I realized I hadn’t properly washed off yet. “Who’s blood do you think that is? She’s tough, yeah, but not invincible. She got blown up over and over today and kept going each time because we were depending on her to succeed. Tell us, Misha, what did it feel like each time you were hit with an explosion.”

I felt my face instantly flush with embarrassment, though it probably wasn’t noticeable underneath the smeared blood.

“It hurt,” I said. “Felt like being kicked all over by a horse. Left my head ringing and a pounding headache. Covered me in bruises and made my nose bleed.”

“That sound like an easy, relaxing day to you?” Harding asked.

The other students finally looked away.

“You all were in here, playing games and relaxing while she was out there getting blown to hell again and again, and all she asked for was a good meal at the end of the day. I think that’s admirable of her. You know there’s some supers who would have demanded money to go out and do what she did today. Some supers would be crowing their success and expecting praise. You see Misha doing any of that? No, because she’s a decent person who just wants to help us.”

“She needs to get off the island too.”

That, it seemed, was too much for Harding. He stood up, leaving his tools and the jammer on the table. He glared daggers at the super who’d spoken.

“Hundreds of your fellow supers have been kidnapped. Misha tried to stop them but was knocked unconscious in the effort. They left her behind because she’s too powerful for them to control or contain. Now we’re here and our communications were being blocked. We were sitting ducks out here and they could have come back at any time and taken us too. Misha could have done nothing, sat back and let whatever happen happen. She knows she can’t stop them and I’m sure she doesn’t want to be hit so hard that even she gets knocked out. But instead she kept at it, kept putting herself in harms way. And you’re going to keep complaining, begrudging her the fact that she gets a nice meal tonight?”

That seemed to finally shut them up and Harding went back to working on the jammer.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“Ungrateful, spoiled brats,” Harding returned.

“I’m sure it’s not all of them,” I said.

“No, but it’s the vocal ones who will lead the rest if you let them. Gotta nip it in the bud.”

“Guess I won’t be making many friends with this group,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Harding said. “Once things calm down a bit and some normalcy returns, they’ll relax.”

“Here’s to normal,” I said, raising my fork.

“Here here,” Harding replied, raising his screwdriver.