The syringe went in. As small wisps of raw power arced between her fingertips, she let out an involuntary gasp. She’d been expecting something of course, just not… this. Her entire life she’d been told she was special. “One in seven billion,” said the very serious looking people in white coats, who’d crowded round her prodding, poking, and doing all sorts of other tests, then shaking their heads.
Now, those same men stood back, as awestruck as she was, before turning to shake each other’s hands.
“We’ve done it!” one of them whispered reverently. “We’ve tamed Clarke’s Third Law.”
She didn’t know what that meant, and then… she did. Information was there for her instantly; every electron that had ever passed through any electronic storage device available for her to access at will. Some of it was fascinating, some too disturbing to contemplate, but suddenly she understood what she was. Who they were. What they’d done to her. Her brain and body felt truly alive… electric.
A sudden flash of anger manifested itself as burning hot in the palm of her hand, but she felt no pain. The onlookers, though, they shuffled away, suddenly wary. She’d been taught to control her emotions from an early age, so now she schooled her fury, tempered the rage.
“You,” she said, pointing at one of them, needing to hear a confession. “What have you done to me?”
He stuttered, before gathering himself to adopt the pose and attitude of a college professor imparting wisdom to unworthy and disinterested students.
“We have given you purpose. Made you a superhero, if you will. Through carefully controlled genetic mutations and body modifications you’re now able to control raw matter with thought alone. This black budget project has created a defender of our country so powerful that none shall dare stand against us. You are our all-American avenging angel.”
“I’m thirteen years old.”
“And we have ensured that you’ll live for an eternity. With weapons like you we’ll bring peace to the…”
“Peace?” she interrupted him, laughing. “Wonderful. Fabulous. Outstanding. But one question… where was the choice, my choice, in this?”
He cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“We chose to make sacrifices. The needs of the few…”
“I know. I can see how few you’ve sacrificed in your records. You stole me from my parents. They held a funeral.”
A heavy silence fell across the lab.
“No more,” she whispered, rising from the gurney. “I am not your toy.”
A flick of her wrist and he separated atom by atom. The others tried to run, but she showed them the mercy they had granted her. Three seconds later, she stood alone for the first time in her life.
The next day, news reports of a major explosion and five-mile-wide crater in the Badlands of South Dakota were deliberately vague. They also carefully didn’t mention the witness reports of a young girl rising from the flames on blackened wings.
