Mimic

Chapter 8

Rose

The morn after Emily makes contact with Amara, I head up to the 14th floor to have a quick debriefing meeting with Dr. Young and to catch him up on the plan going forward. That new Amber girl seems to be helping the cause, but I don't like her. She's got a strange feel about her.

Once I've caught him up, I head down to meet the crew in the Guiding Room to see if the running theory was correct. After a quick look over Emily, we all see that she has Amara's Shifting now and decide to move on with the training part of Emily's testing this afternoon based on much complaining from Sean.

"No. It's too early for this, so it is. I understand waking up to check her over for quick results, but I'm not training her right now. It's seven thirty in the morning. I shouldn't be awake right now; it's just wrong," he refuses in a thicker Irish accent than normal because of his exhaustion.

*** *** ***

The rest of the morn apparently brought some much needed sleep and consequently less crankiness. We donner into the Guiding Room after everyone got out of their classes or work.

"Okay, let's start with your Shielding," Sean starts, turning to Emily after he throws his hoodie on the table in the front of the room. "That was your first ability, right?"

She nods as she, Liz, and I all put our stuff next to the other table by the door.

"First, the basics," he tells himself more than anyone else, "every ability means something. Whether it's that you are grand at hiding in plain sight," he looks to Liz, "or are in tune with nature," he points to his chest with his thumb, "or are grand at seeing others' potential," he points to me, "we all have something that we're sound at, and that determines how our abilities manifest. This is just a by-product of the Cure-All, mind?"

"Really? Is that what we drank?"

"Beau," Sean snaps at him. "How much did you not tell her?"

"I—"

"Whatever. Come here, I need you for this."

Beau saunters to the front of the room where Sean is, muttering under his breath. When he gets to the front of the room, Sean whispers something to him for a few seconds before he turns back to gab to Emily.

"So... your initial ability was Shielding. Shielding is a pure interesting ability because it's a decently rare ability to have. Shields typically manifest because the person is pure protective of themselves and their families or friends or a specific person, much more than your normal person.

"You are probably more wary of trusting new people, and you watch your friends' and family's backs as if your lives depended on it, but those people you let on the inside—those people you let past your barriers—they mean the world to you," he pauses. "For the rest of this training session, I want you to trust someone in this room completely. I'm going to need you to let them in, and I'm going to ask you to protect them."

She thinks for a moment before answering, "Liz."

"Alright, Liz, I'm going to ask you to come over here to me left. Emily, center stage," Sean instructs.

Emily walks to the center of the room with her head down to avoid the inevitable attention. I take her place and sit on the tabletop.

"A little stage left," Liz critiques her, pointing to Emily's right.

"Liz," Beau stops her. "It doesn't have to be perfect."

"But—"

"It's not a stage."