"Nice of you to finally make it," scowled Ms. Studney as I walked into the debriefing room after leaving the theatre where Mike and Zelda left me. She make a production of looking at her watch, then at the others around the table. "Ten minutes late, Mr. Martin. And that's ten minutes after you were already late. We called up to Ms. Delarosa five minutes ago, so there's no excuse there." She put her hands on her hips and glared at me, "So, what's your excuse?"
I smirked, and tossed my goggles onto the table. They spun around until they stopped in the middle. "That a good enough excuse?" I asked as I slipped into my chair beside Jessica.
Ms. Studney was about to say something when the goggles flew through the air and into Melissa's hand. "Wait, did Mike and Zelda take these when you two were in the vault?"
"Yeah," agreed Jessica reluctantly. She then looked over at me a look of concern.
"Explain Mr. Martin," commanded Ms. Studney, "Now!"
I remained seated, and leaned back in the chair. "Mike showed up in the theatre."
"What?" exclaimed Ms. Studney. Jay looked surprised, but neither Jessica nor Melissa looked surprised, which wasn't surprising considering.
"After our confrontation in the vault," I began to explain, "he and Zelda shucked their disguises then teleported here. With the anti-eavesdrop spells Zel's come up with, I'm not surprised security wasn't alerted. He was reviewing old mission tapes in the theatre. I was surprised, and he forced me to watch. After a few minutes, he turned around, returned my goggles, and then offered for Jessica and I to join him."
"So," began Ms. Studney, inquisitively, "what did you say?"
"I said I'd think about it," I replied. "I didn't say no, and I didn't say yes." He looked to Melissa, "Can I have my goggles back?"
She slid them to me, a centimeter above the surface of the table. I reached out to grab them.
"Joe," Ms. Studney began, and I knew I was in trouble. She then continued, calmly, "I'm sorry, but until we are sure that Ms. Moonfire or Mr. Schultz hasn't compromised the security of your father's goggles, we're going to have to keep them in quarantine." She then reached out her hand.
I looked to Melissa, silently pleading to her to give me the goggles. She looked from me to the principal, and back, my goggles floating midway between her and I.
"Mel, please, give me my goggles," I pleaded.
"Melissa," said Ms. Studney tersely.
Then, something totally unexpected happened. Well, actually, two completely unexpected things. First, Melissa fainted, dropping the goggles. Second, the goggles stopped less than a millimeter from the tabletop, and floated over to Jessica. She grabbed the as if she hadn't expected it to happen, and then handed them to me.
"Jessica?" Ms. Studney said in surprise.
Looking back on the previous ten minutes, I don't know why i was surprised. Every time Mike had made a statement as declaratory as he had in the theatre, he wasn't wrong.
"Jess?" I said, tucking the goggles into a pocket of my pants.
"Joe, what just happened?" she asked.
"Jess, I think you're a PDP," I replied, echoing Mike's statement earlier. "It makes sense. Telepathy and teleporting aren't very related."
"But that's what I was born with," she exasperatingly said.
"Yes, but what if it's just because the telepathy part of your package was weak enough to appear at birth."
"But what about her acrobatics?" asked Melissa, now conscious again. I guessed she was annoyed that she wasn't the only PDP on the team now.
"Body control," stated Ms. Studney. "Many PDPs have been shown to exhibit a large amount of control over their bodies with their PK with little effort. I guess Ms. Martinez just assumed that all she had was the body control, her acrobatics." She looked over to Jessica, "Once we're done with the debriefing, you'll need to report to my office so we can schedule a time for you to get your powers re-tested."
I reached over and help Jess' hand, which she was resting on the table, "It'll be okay Jess. You got through the Zener cards fine last time. What's a few more tests?"
She turned her head and looked me in the eyes, "But the movie? Our date?"
I chuckled, "Honey, Jess. We can see a movie afterwards."
She continued to focus on me, ignoring that other three people in the room. James was comforting Melissa, and Ms. Studney was calling someone, probably the state's Paranormal Regulatory Department, her bosses, about scheduling Jess' tests, and probably Mike and Zelda's intrusion as well.
"Joe," she said, sobbing a bit, "I've been training to be an acrobat telporter with telepathy, not a PDP teleporter. What if I'm no good at it?"
"Jess," I said, looking her in the eyes, my hands cupping her jaw, "It's going to be okay. Look at how good you are at acrobatics. If that's any indication of your PK, then you're a Grade Four at least. At that level, just like with the acrobatics and my intuition, it just comes naturally."
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