Nano by Stapleton Marc

Author:Stapleton, Marc
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

After much backslapping and many high-fives from Mikey – and a little guarded admiration from Dina – we head back to the gymnasium.

There, we decide our next moves. Mikey sends me and Salman out to look for more traps within the village, and he and Dina look to barricade the building, blocking the broken windows of the gymnasium with the intact remnants of desks and cupboards.

After a couple of hours, neither me, Salman, nor Vega can detect any more traps. We return to the gymnasium and gather around a gym bench someone has dragged into the middle of the room. It’s hot as all hell in here – the air con is long gone, if this building ever had it – but as the afternoon goes on, it’s getting mercifully cooler.

I wipe away a palm-full of sweat from my forehead and from my hair underneath my hat. This is a ruined mess of a place – like exploring a shipwreck in a drained sea – but I can still recognize the gymnasium. The latches on the ceiling for the ropes, the benches, the shiny wooden flooring.

I close my eyes and can almost hear my old classmates shouting, running, crying, and jumping. And then me, sat to one side, always having to watch, never made to participate. Humiliating.

“I hate gym class,” I finally find myself saying, speaking my thoughts out loud. “I mean, you know, I used to hate gym class.”

“Wasn’t your thing, huh?” Mikey asks. He has his rifle – I can’t identify it from any videogames I’ve ever played – laid out in front of him. He’s meticulously unscrewing each part. “It was the only part of school I ever enjoyed.”

“I had a heart condition” I add, still lost in my own thoughts and unhappy memories. “Everyone had me wrapped in cotton wool. They thought I was too fragile to take part in any sport. Too much of a liability to join in.”

“And look at you now,” he says, laughing. I watch him finish dissembling his rifle and pick up a cloth. “Soaking up bullets like a west-coast rapper.”

I snort in appreciation. Then I realize Dina’s eyes are burning a hole in me. I turn my head to look at her.

“Is that why you’re doing this?” she asks; those brown eyes are interrogating me. Searching deeply into my soul. She still doesn’t trust me; doesn’t understand me. “You’re doing this to prove you’re no longer that kid?”

I dither, avoiding her gaze and trying to find the words. Of course she’s right. I tell myself I’m out to use my abilities for good, to depose the dictator and become the hero. But I’m still that fragile, stupid kid at heart.

Finally, I shrug.

“I don’t know,” I say, looking her in the eyes at last. “I can’t tell you what I’ve gone through in the last week or so. I’ve discovered things about myself I never knew I had. Discovered strengths and tolerances I could never have dreamed of. Maybe I just want to push myself to the limit.

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