As I walk up to The Weird Sisters’ HQ building, all I can focus on is the butterflies in my belly. I’d woken up way earlier than I had to this morning, paranoid that I wouldn’t have enough time to get ready. But in the end, I ended up having a shower, doing my weekly shot and then having hours to choose my outfit for today. I ended up with something that, while still looking good, also allowed for movement as I had no idea what to expect from meeting The Weird Sisters today.

  With a deep breath, I walked up and through the sliding glass door to the main reception. As soon as I entered, the receptionist looked up at me, and I saw the recognition in her eyes. It was the same receptionist as the last time I was here, leading me to think that they only had one receptionist. As I approach the desk, I open my mouth to tell her why I’m here, but she interrupts me before I can say anything.

  “Yes, I know why you’re here, don’t worry, ma’am,” she says, smiling at me, “If you just take a seat over there, I’ll let the team know you’re here.” She gestures over to a bench against the wall on the side of the room. I pause, mouth open, for a second, before shutting my mouth and going over and sitting on the bench, a little nonplussed at being interrupted.

  I’ve only been sitting down for a few minutes before I sense the three approaching the reception, even though I’ve been trying not to pay too much attention. In the minute before they enter the reception area, I can’t help but notice that each person’s presence I can sense has a slightly different feel to it. Then the door slides open, and they enter the reception area. And I feel my anxiety rising inside me. I fight to stay calm as I stand and approach the trio.

  “Hi there, Robyn, was it?” Shard says, “Efflorescent tells us you recently awakened and are looking for an Extra-Human sponsorship, correct?”

  “Y-yeah, that’s right. I awakened during the museum break-in, and I always wanted to help people, and this feels like the right way to do that.” I tell her, a little weirded out by having this conversation in the reception area. I guess that it’s just very rare for anyone to come in here.

  “Great, that’s good to hear, Robyn,” she says, half turning back towards the door they came from. “Follow us and we’ll start the process. We’ll get some information from you, which won’t leave this building, of course, and then there are two tests we have to do as well.” She says as we start walking down the corridor. “Don’t worry, the tests are nothing big really, and you can’t fail them,” she laughs a little at that. “The first one tests for the Extra-Human gene, and the second one just measures a bunch of metrics while you use your abilities. Nothing to worry about, I promise.” She looks at her teammates, Shelter and Efflorescent, to back her up.

  “Yeah, absolutely!” adds Shelter, “They’re super easy! Plus, Effy will do the tests, so nothing at all to worry about!”

  “Shelter…” groans Shard, “what did I say about nicknames?”

  “Oh! I’m sorry!” exclaims Shelter, her hands flying to her mouth and a blush rising in her cheeks. Efflorescent just stands there and smiles, seemingly not fussed either way.

  We walk a little further down the corridor and then turn right through some double doors into a large room that has one corner partitioned off with some seats and a bank of computers. The three lead me over to the seats as Shard hands me a clipboard.

  “Here, this is a form for you to just put your basic info on. More just part of the procedure of sponsorship than anything important. The important form will be auto-created from the machine that measures your abilities.”

  I nod as I put my basic info onto the form, before handing it back to Shard. Efflorescent comes over and addresses me, “So, I’ve got to take your blood for the first test,” she says, holding a hand out for my arm. I swallow hard, then put my arm in her hand. With a smile, a vine slips out of the sleeve of her dress and wraps around my upper arm, squeezing. Then she draws my blood into a syringe almost without me feeling it.

  “So, that’s testing for my awakened Extra-Human gene?” I ask, a little nervous.

  “Yes, that’s exactly it, I just put the sample in the machine and it checks for the gene and puts a little checkbox on the form that the ‘powers above’ deem necessary,” she says, doing little finger quotes as she says powers above. She moves over to the machine, putting the sample into it as Shard and Shelter go with me to the large open space. As I walk over, I catch Efflorescent out of the corner of my eye, and I realise not entirely using my eye, quirking her eyebrow at something on the computer screen before she gives a thumbs up to Shard and Shelter.

  “Right, so this is the last part of this process now. Shelter will guide you through this last bit, and then you can go home, and we can reconvene in a day or two to discuss the results and our decision, if that’s okay?”

  “Yeah, that sounds great to me,” I tell her, pushing down the growing worry that they’ll just tell me to get lost or something.

  “Right, Shelter, take it away,” Shard says, walking over to where Efflorescent is, standing behind the computer banks.

  “Okay, so I’ll just skip the complicated stuff. But basically, the computer is scanning the entire room, and you just use each of your abilities, and it records… stuff.” She says, grinning, clearly excited.

  My God, she’s so fucking cute.

  I realise I’m finding it hard to focus, getting too distracted by how attracted I am to her.

  “S-so… how do we go about this?” I finally managed to ask.

  Shelter grins even wider and explains, “So, we’ll just start with you telling me your powers or abilities and then we’ll decide how best to use them so the computer can record it.” She looks at me, almost bouncing with excitement. “So, what can you do, Robyn?”

  “Oh, well, I have a kind of always active ESP, although I can only clearly make things out when I’m concentrating. For now, it’s already got easier since I awakened, though. I also can do an instant teleport anywhere within the area of that ESP. I do have one extra ability, but I don’t know if I can do it on demand., I only did it once in a… erm, self-defence situation.” I say, veering on the edge of rambling.

  “Okay! We can work with that, no worries.” Shelter says, “Just first up, try to sense something outside of this room.”

  “I can do that,” I say, concentrating on my surroundings. After a second, I realise the only person in the building that I can sense other than the four of us is the receptionist. As I let my focus linger on the receptionist, I start to glean more information. I can sense that she’s reading a magazine too. “So, the only other person in this building, and she’s reading a magazine right now?”

  Shelter bursts out laughing, “Of course she is!” I see Shard shaking her head, but grinning as she does. Shelter recovers from her bout of laughter and gestures at me, “Go ahead, show us the teleport then.”

  “O-okay,” I say, focusing on the bank of computers and willing myself to move in that direction. “Hi?” I say to Shard and Efflorescent as I’m now directly behind them. Shard jumps a tiny bit, and I see Shelter look confused for a second, but Efflorescent simply looks at me quizzically. “Fascinating,” she says, “There’s no intervening time with your teleport. As far as this computer can tell, you are simply in a different place, with no way to track it.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “That seems pretty powerful,” I muse, mostly to myself, “so my last ability is… well, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it on demand and the last time it happened, the guy ran away screaming…”

  Shard narrows her eyes as I say this, “Okay, so we’ll stand over here and look away from you, and you can do it, and the computer will still track it, sound okay?” she says, all business.

  “Yeah, that sounds good,” I say, nodding. Once they’re all standing by the computer and facing the wall so they’re looking away from me, I try to replicate what happened. It feels like I’m grabbing something and wrapping it around me, and sure enough, the darkness blankets me and the surrounding area, and I can tell somehow that my eyes have changed once again, although it doesn’t feel as intense as before.

  “Woah, this is creepy,” Shelter says, “I literally can’t see anything.”

  “I… I can see in this dark fine, and my eyes are different. I think the eyes do the thing that happened to the guy, but it feels less intense this time.” I tell them, nervousness creeping into my voice.

  Without warning, Efflorescent turns to face my direction, but deliberately doesn’t make eye contact with me. I see her eyes widen as she sees something, and I panic and release the darkness, and it dissipates, and I feel my eyes return to normal again.

  “That’s quite a powerful ability you have there, Robyn,” Efflorescent tells me, “if it’s possible to learn to use just parts of that or to exclude people from the effect, even more so.”

  I smile at her and her two teammates, who have now turned around and walked over to join us.

  After a little more discussion of my powers, although Efflorescent stays quiet on what she saw when she looked at me during my darkness state, we all move to a much more comfortable lounge-like room. Then, Shard and Efflorescent go somewhere else in the HQ and leave me alone with Shelter. I swear to God I feel my heartbeat ratchet up as I’m left alone with her.

  “So, those two usually leave things like this to me, because well, I’m the only one that’s good with people, to be honest.” Shelter admits to me, smiling sheepishly. “This part is where we just have a little talk, just in case any part of this has made you change your mind about going through with the sponsorship program.”

  “Oh, I still feel very much like this is what I want to do,” I tell her.

  “Well, that’s great. I’m happy to hear that, Robyn. You know, I went through the sponsorship program too, god it must be 5 or 6 years ago now. So, I’m here to help you with any part of it you might be unsure about.” She grins at me. “Ugh, I’m just so excited about possibly getting another member! Just let me know if I start being too much, ‘kay?”

  “Too much? I’m not sure there could ever be too much of you,” I say, before realising what I just said and immediately blushing a deep red. “Uh, that is, I mean, you’re not being too much for me,” I stammer, the words fighting to get out of my mouth.

  “Well, that’s good to know,” she tells me, winking at me. “Well, if there’s anything else you wanna talk about the sponsorship, take this, and you can get in touch with me anytime, even if you don’t end up joining.” She says, handing me a business card that just has a single mobile number.

  “A-absolutely! Thanks so much, Shelter!” I say as she turns to leave the room.

  “The door on the other side opens onto the reception. Just exit that way once you’re ready. Talk soon!” she says and with that she leaves.

  I take a few minutes, following her presence with my senses until she leaves my range before heading out the door she indicated, and then exiting the building altogether.

  Once I’m back home, I realise I have way too much energy, so I decide to be productive for once and get some chores done. While I’m vacuuming the lounge area, I feel my phone in my pocket buzz. I pull it out and see a text message from an unknown number.

  Heyy! I know I said you could text me, but you seemed like you might talk yourself out of doing that, so now there’s a message you have to reply to, lol - Shelter.

  I read it once, and twice and then another time, before I manage to convince myself it’s real. I can’t believe she gave me her number and then texted me first. I decide to text back, seeing as she kind of called me out and made it so I have to.

  Hi Shelter, thanks for the text. You’re probably right. I would have agonised over sending the first text, social anxiety, eh?

  I get a response almost immediately.

  You’re doing fine so far! I obviously can’t tell you how our conversation about you being sponsored went, but I’ll just say I think it was relatively positive, and leave it at that. Talk to you soon, Robyn! Oh, one more thing. Did you think of a hero name? I have an idea based on something Effy told me, but we can talk about it later. Bye!

  It’s positive? And she has an idea for a hero name already? I don’t wanna read into it too much, but none of that sounds like they don’t want me to join. I text back saying thanks and expressing interest in the name, as I hadn’t thought of one and then put my phone away.

  Just as I’m finishing my chores, there’s a knock at my door. I pause, wondering who the hell this could be. By the time I get to the door, there’s no one there, just a cardboard box and a brown envelope resting on top of it. I pick them both up and take them inside, locking the door as I do.

  I open the envelope first and find a letter attached to some charts. The charts are clearly from my testing earlier and show the computer highlighting that it said my blood sample did not contain the Extra-Human gene. My eyes widen in shock as I see this result, but I have powers? How is that possible? Looking at the letter, I begin to read.

  Hello,

  You are somewhat of a marvel, young Robyn. You do not have the Extra-Human gene, but you still have awakened powers. You are something that I have been searching for over many years at this point.

  I always knew that the Extra-Human gene wasn’t the only way to manifest abilities. And now I can look forward to figuring out the science behind this.

  Ever in your corner,

  Me.

  Jesus, who even could’ve gotten this information? This letter is also very vague about whether they mean this in a good or bad way for me, although the ‘ever in your corner’ part leads me to be a little more hopeful.

  Letting out a sigh, I move to the box, opening it to reveal a bunch of padding, and inside the padding is a note that simply reads:

  You mess with one of us, you mess with us all. Consider this your only warning.

  Below the note is a red smudge that I don’t want to think about too much.

  I immediately don’t want to think about that, and I concentrate on my extended senses, again finding them there with little effort. There’s no one out of place, so whoever delivered it must be gone already, and the warning is just that it seems. The only person I can think I’ve messed with is that drunk guy. Maybe he was part of a gang or something? That would be just my luck, wouldn’t it?

  I make sure everything is locked and secure as it can be before heading to bed, very eager to sleep after my long day. I lay there clutching my phone as I remember texting Shelter earlier to try to get into a better headspace, and fall asleep with a smile on my face.