The Minor Rescue

Chapter 1

I used to think I was nothing special, but after everything that happened last semester, I know better.

For one thing, I can manipulate gravity.

If you ask Director Wolfshaw, he’ll say I’m no superhero, that a gravitar’s abilities are possible “because of science—not the bite of a radioactive spider or some magic ring.”

Whatever.

I think what I can do is pretty super, and because I was dropped sixteen stories on the night of a supermoon, I’m even more powerful than the average gravitar. Once I learn a new skill, my extra strength kicks in and I advance quickly. As soon as I figured out how to pull, I was immediately doing a heavy pull. And when there’s a supermoon, I’ve got even more power. I was the one who swooped in and BAM! KAPOW! stopped the bad guy and saved the lives of my best friends.

Okay, yeah, I’m also the one who let the bad guy, aka my great-uncle Saul, manipulate me and ultimately get away the night of The Incident. But—

“Noah, focus,” Wolfshaw barks. He’s got a broad chest, big muscles, and a military buzz cut that’s pretty spot-on for the director of a covert international organization affiliated with the CIA.

“Yes, sir!” I bark back. I straighten to my full height, which is almost as tall as he is, and adjust my blue belt.

Focus . . . I need to focus.

But not on practicing my press to build up to a heavy press like Wolfshaw wants me to do. Sure, I’d like to get off the provisional status I was put on after my mistakes with Saul. Yes, I want to earn my purple belt and keep ZOOMING through the Gravitas ranks. But I’m not going anywhere without Haley. What I’m focused on right now is helping my best friend get her press back. The dynamic duo sticks together.

When I learned I was a gravitar, Haley had already been training for a full six months. She was intermediate before I even started. But then Saul dropped her off the roof, and she lost her ability to press and went back to a green belt. While I’ve been advancing, she’s been stuck. She can pull and she can SLG (which we pronounce as “slug”), but she can’t press anymore.

A press is basically a pull plus, enabling a gravitar to pull something heavier than his or her body weight. We essentially increase our mass by compressing—or pressing—gravitons to our bodies. This alters the gravitational forces between us and a heavier object so that we can pull on it and make it move.

Haley understands this with her brain, but not her body. Not anymore.

What happened that night is holding her back. Haley’s scared. And you can’t press from a place of fear.

I don’t think having the director of Gravitas as our instructor has helped either. Wolfshaw makes everybody nervous. Nobody knows why he was put in a teaching position, but personally, I think he’s here to keep an eye on me. He started once I entered intermediate. Coincidence? I think not.