My dreams came in brief flashes, interspersed with long periods of darkness where the only thing I was aware of was my own body, trapped in a black void. Like I was watching a corrupted video, I saw only snippets of my unconscious hallucinations, accompanied by odd sounds, either muffled or the wrong pitch or distorted. Even though I knew they were dreams, I couldn’t even call them lucid, because there wasn’t enough time to affect them.

  There was no common theme to them, as far as I could tell. And if there was any metaphorical significance to what I was seeing, I hadn’t figured it out by the time I lost count of how many I’d been through. They seemed utterly random to me.

  An unfamiliar woman with black hair, leaning down, patting my head. A small town at nighttime seen from a rooftop, flat fields stretching endlessly beyond it. A packed stadium, viewed from the arena floor. Walking through a crowd, all of their attention on me. Soaring through the skies, watching the clouds go by below. Lying in bed, staring up at a bunch of blurry posters on a damp ceiling. And more things along those lines.

  I couldn’t make sense of any of it, and ended up paying little attention to them after a while, instead becoming frustrated when they forced my attention away from my own body in that black void that came between the little snippets of dream. In the darkness, I was aware of myself in a way that I’d never felt before. I could feel everything. It was like my proprioception had turned completely internal: The blood pumping through my veins. The air filling and draining from my lungs. The electric spark of signals travelling through my nervous system.

  Most of all, I could feel my power signal, such as it was. Like this, my F-rank rating was all too understandable. If anything, what I was feeling here probably didn’t even deserve F-rank—compared even to the weakest signals I’d felt since gaining the ability to sense them, it was hilariously weak. If I’d been able to actually move my body rather than merely feel it, I would’ve laughed out loud at the absurdity. It could barely even be called a signal. Hardly there. If they measured it, it’d set a world record for number of zeros.

  But it was there. Weak and thin and utterly undefined, but it was there. Honestly, it had actually got a bit stronger since I’d gained this little awareness of myself, presumably growing back to its regular state after the punishing workout I’d put it through. I got the impression there’d been a period where I was truly unconscious, my signal weakened so bad that some crucial processes had diverted their attention to repairing whatever they could. It hadn’t been as if I’d maintained awareness straight away after fainting in front of Vixen.

  Right now, I was in an odd state of dissociation, my emotions deeply suppressed, but I knew I was going to feel humiliated about that incident when I woke up. She wasn’t a hero I greatly admired or anything, but collapsing in front of anyone right after I just convinced them that I’d be okay was a mortifying thing. I’d have to apologise to her, somehow. And thank her. Presumably, she’d rushed to get me help.

  Thinking of Vixen took me back to what I’d felt of her signal. And, more importantly, what I’d discovered about mine. My own signal had reverted to what I was now thinking of as its base equilibrium. If other signals had specific, unique frequencies, then mine was completely neutral, toneless. White noise, as opposed to the variously elaborate tunes that other signals emanated.

  But I suspected it wasn’t always that way. Back then, with Vixen, I’d come to a realisation: my ability to sense signals might not necessarily be some special sense I’d developed, but instead my own signal resonating with others. That’s why it was always so uncomfortable to be around a lot of signals at once, and what made it so difficult to pick out one signal from the crowd. That’s why it weakened me on a level that had always been so hard to explain, why it left me mildly disoriented.

  It recontextualised everything. Explained so much.

  The reason I felt the power measurement machines in Superverse’s lab was because my signal was trying and failing to mimic whatever the hell those things were doing. My Shimada score lowered after interacting with signals because my signal actually was getting physically weaker from the strain of… whatever my signal was trying to achieve.

  And that, I felt, was the crux of the matter. The real million-dollar question(s).

  What was my signal actually doing? And why?

  Was this just a thing that naturally occurred if you didn’t mould your power signal into a foundational power straight away, for whatever reason? Or was it something unique to me?

  The latter possibility seemed unlikely, since Marquise had not only implied that my dad was the same way, but that she could do something similar, too. And if Marquise and I had the same ability…

  I’d never be pompous enough to pat myself on the back and boast of my intelligence for all to hear, but I figured I was no idiot. A good memory and a lot of dedication had always yielded good grades in school, and I generally picked up skills and absorbed knowledge without too much stress. I’d never go and call myself a genius, but I’d be comfortable categorising myself as smart.

  Smart enough, at least, to make obvious connections.

  Take the fact that Marquise was quite clearly capable of using some sort of superhuman ability. And that she’d said I could do the same, with the heavy implication that power signals were the answer.

  Combine that with the fact that I’d felt my own signal resonating to the same frequency as another person’s power signal, if only weaker, and for only a moment.

  I could put two and two together, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. After years of disappointment, allowing myself to feel hope was a dangerous prospect. If things didn’t work out as I wanted now—if this new discovery turned out to be lesser than the Revelation I was starting to imagine—it would only be all the more crushing.

  That wasn’t a logical way to think. It wasn’t borne out of any kind of rationality or reason, it was just me trying to protect myself from the pain that would come from crushed expectations. I’d been burned this way a few times before, when it had seemed like new avenues might’ve be open to me, only to see them mercilessly slam shut.

  But even if it was rational, emotion was starting to creep back in, piercing through the numb haze I’d found myself in ever since I became aware of myself in this unwaking state. I hadn’t seen another snapshot dream in a while.

  Soon, I was sure, I was going to wake up.

  And at that time, I’d have to face the reality of the situation, whether I wanted to believe it or not. I’d have to test the theory out, and accept the disappointment if the idea bobbing around in my stormy thoughts turned out to be incorrect.

  Even telling myself that, even knowing that the pain would be all the more unbearable if it turned out not to be true, the possibility of being able to manipulate signals, whether it was my own or others—potentially even mimic other people’s signals and, by extension, their powers—had me grinning like a lunatic when my eyes finally opened. It must have been quite the sight, if anyone was watching.

  I blinked a few times to adjust my eyes to the dim light, and found myself staring up at a plain white ceiling. Turning my head to either side, the same could be said of the walls and floor: all white, and distinctly devoid of any kind of decoration—unless you counted the four cameras sitting at the upper corners of the cube-shaped room, which I didn’t. There wasn’t even a door. Where the light was coming from, I didn’t know, but I was glad not to wake in total darkness.

  Other interests had kept me calm, back in that unwaking state I’d been in. If I hadn’t had the ability to inspect my power signal and keep my focus on that, it would’ve been quite the distressing situation. Paralysation wasn’t my worst fear, per se, but it horrified me enough that that scenario might have bothered me a lot more, in other circumstances.

  I sat up, assessing my body, still wearing the clothes I’d come to the Colosseum in: a simple tracksuit with comfortable white sneakers. My power signal was still a tad sore, but it seemed to have pretty much recovered from the punishment I’d put it through. My physical body was fine, too, but there hadn’t been any problems there in the first place.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  So. It turned out that overworking my power signal could, somehow, knock me unconscious. Seeing as she’d been right next to me at the time, Vixen had probably called for help, and she would’ve relayed to any emergency responders what had been going on just prior to my collapse. I couldn’t say for sure that this would’ve been the first time any paramedic had ever heard of someone blacking out due to a mere power signal, but I gave it even odds.

  There’d probably been a bit of a panic, no one knowing what to do to solve the problem, growing increasingly baffled as any tests they ran showed them I was physically fine. Power signals weren’t a commonly known thing, after all. Most people never even got to experience them, and most that did barely felt them for more than a few weeks.

  But evidently someone had eventually cottoned on to Vixen’s explanation and come up with the bright idea of putting me in a signal isolation chamber.

  Aside from Marquise’s office, I’d only been inside isolation chambers a few times. They were generally meant to ensure no outside interference when doing particularly delicate signal tests. Given my whole ‘no signal’ situation, a few enterprising researchers had thought to stick me in one and do the generalised Shimada test there. It had given me some familiarity with them, over the years.

  Even if I’d never been inside one before, I figure I would’ve identified my current location pretty quickly anyway. The total lack of signals around me just did not happen. Ever. In other circumstances, I might’ve considered the ‘silence’ as blissful, but right now all I wanted to do was feel as many signals as possible and see how my own reacted to them.

  Frustration boiling within me, I picked one of the cameras at random and glared up at it. My bed was placed almost in the centre of the room, and the cameras had all twitched minutely when I’d sat up, so I knew there was something watching, at least, and if it wasn’t a human monitoring me, the program would hopefully alert someone that I was awake.

  Sure enough, barely a minute passed before a familiar voice echoed from above like the word of god, “Ah, Mister Shaw. Good to see you awake, young man.”

  I blinked a few times, immediately placing the voice but struggling to believe it. “Dr Klein?” I asked. “Since when do you get involved in medical emergencies?”

  “Since I got the call from young Miss Reddy that you’d been knocked unconscious by overuse of your power signal, and, as the most knowledgeable expert on signals she knew, my assistance was demanded. Naturally, knowing what I do about you, I pulled some strings to get you sequestered away in a signal isolation chamber. We would’ve liked to run some tests, but recalled you reacting negatively to the power testing machines last time, and didn’t want to exacerbate whatever signal-related troubles you were having unless the situation deteriorated. Luckily, you started showing signs of recovery as soon as we closed the door.” He paused, then spoke quieter, “The young lady is deeply unimpressed with you, by the way.”

  A chuckle escaped me before I could stop it. “Yeah. I’m in for the lecture of a lifetime. My sister was there too, you see.”

  “Vesper, yes. I don’t know how I didn’t make that connection between the two of you, before today.” Another pause. “You don’t sound particularly concerned about receiving their ire.”

  “Hard to bring myself to worry about stuff like that when I’m riding the high of a new revelation.”

  “Oh? Have you finally achieved a foundation, then?”

  “Something like that.” I paused as I stretched out my legs and arms, wiggled my fingers and toes. Everything seemed to be in order. “You said today? I wasn’t out long, then?”

  “Approximately four hours have passed since you first collapsed before Vixen.”

  That finally wiped the smile off my face. How mortifying. “I’m gonna have to apologise to her.”

  “Yes. She was deeply unimpressed too,” Dr Klein agreed. “She claimed you’d assured her it would be no problem.”

  I winced. “Yeah. In my defence, I had no idea it would actually have that strong of an effect on me. I just thought it would be unpleasant.”

  “Well, now you know,” Dr Klein said, sounding cheerful. There was a moment of silence, and when he spoke again, there was a deep note of curiosity in his voice, “So, what did you discover, Mister Shaw? The mystery of your power signal has been plaguing me ever since your visit. While I admit I would’ve preferred to find the answer myself, I must say very I’m intrigued by this revelation of yours.”

  “It wasn’t a revelation in the way that you’re probably thinking,” I told him, stalling for time a bit. I didn’t know for sure whether I wanted to advertise what my signal sense could potentially do. Quite apart from the possibility I was wrong and how humiliating that would be, the chance I was right was equally worrying, in its own way.

  On the more extreme end, if I truly could copy powers, that was a big fucking deal. It was the kind of thing that would bring international attention, and I imagined there would be a myriad of mixed feelings among the population. Above all that, I could see a scenario where a lot of people wouldn’t like the idea of someone out there being able to copy their hard-earned power at all. I didn’t want to be a shady bastard copying signals without consent, but at the same time I didn’t want to be under mass scrutiny.

  If I was going to tell Dr Klein about anything at all, I wasn’t going to be revealing some of my more optimistic speculations. Hopefully, he wouldn’t come to the same conclusion on his own.

  “As you can probably guess, I went to the Colosseum to expose myself to signals in a different context, like we discussed.”

  “That was my assumption, yes.” The eagerness in Dr Klein’s voice was palpable. I could imagine him leaning closer to the screen he was watching me through, and gave a wry smile to the nearest camera.

  “I wanted to see if I could isolate one signal among loads of others while they’re all absolutely blaring, using their powers to the fullest. It was a pain in the ass, to the point I only actually managed it once, and early on to boot.”

  “Even that much is a success,” Dr Klein said. “It must have been invigorating.”

  “It was,” I said with a grin. “Thinking about it, that was probably the first bit of progress I’ve made with my power in my entire life. My first active use of my power sense, at the very least.”

  “Congratulations, Mister Shaw.”

  I nodded. “Out of curiosity, how many people are observing me right now?”

  “Right at this moment, it’s just me—I’m in a room directly adjacent to yours, by the way, and have all kinds of equipment for monitoring you, though we have the stuff meant for assessing power signals switched off, for obvious reasons. Your sister, uncle, and Miss Reddy stepped out for a moment.”

  I blinked. Uncle Adam? This situation was just getting worse and worse, but I didn’t want to think about that for now. “Can I swear you to secrecy on something?”

  The ensuing silence was heavy, and I spent it staring steadily into the camera, keeping my expression blank.

  “A secret from whom?” Dr Klein asked with a note of apprehension in his voice.

  “Your superiors,” I said. “I don’t want to be harassed by suits like what Ashika deals with.”

  “I can do that,” he said slowly. “You truly think your discovery is that momentous?”

  “I have a theory as to why a lot of power signals at once bother me, and why mine weakens when interacting with them. Why I felt your power testing machines, too.”

  “Interesting.” Dr Klein paused, and I could almost hear the gears turning in his head. “Give me a moment.”

  “Sure.”

  I’d been expecting the researcher to take some time to think it over and settled in to wait for him to come to a decision, so it took me off guard when a hissing sound echoed through the room, and a panel on the wall directly ahead of me swung inwards. On the other side stood Dr Klein, eyes deathly serious behind his fashionable spectacles. His lab coat looked hastily put on, a little creased, and he wore a much more casual shit and trouser set than I was used to seeing from him. No tie, even!

  He stepped to the side of my bed and spoke in a murmur, “The cameras are no longer recording. You have privacy.”

  “Thank you,” I said, injecting the utmost sincerity into my voice. I took a breath, steeling myself. “The best way to put it is like this: I don’t think I’m really sensing signals. Not in the way ‘sensing’ implies, anyway. I haven’t been granted a special extra sense, and my power isn’t some weak and pitiful ability to feel signals, either.” I paused, staring the doctor in the eyes, drinking in his blatant fascination. For so long, those eyes had been full of bafflement and pity. It felt good to have the man’s undivided attention, to have someone’s curiosity directed at me for once instead of Ashika or Maisie.

  “What’s really happening is,” I continued with gravity in my voice, “my own power signal is resonating with the signals of other people, and me ‘feeling’ them is simply my brain trying to interpret that data. And… I think, eventually, I might be able to manipulate my own signal.”

  Dr Klein was left blinking. His mouth flapped open, but no words passed his lips. After a moment, he removed his glasses and wiped them down. When he placed them back on his nose, his gaze seemed almost hungry. “I can see why you wanted this kept between us.”

  I nodded. “Do you think you might be willing to do some pro bono work for me?”

  “I’m sure we can arrange something,” Dr Klein said.

  Discord :)