Pulse

when they were right over the bar, he would use his mind to move the jumper’s legs down and knock the bar off the stands. He did this to all the other jumpers, messing with their heads as they looked at the fallen bar and thought, What the hell? When the guy who’d made the lame comment stepped up for his first jump, Wade took special pleasure in making him trip on his approach and fall flat on his face. The guy didn’t even make it to the bar.
    “You guys warming up at six-six? Really?” Wade asked. “Huh.”
    On his first jump, Wade couldn’t help himself. He cleared it by a foot and a half, a dangerous sign of talent that hovered in the area of the world record. Then he walked past the group and over to the throwing area. “I guess once is enough.”
    He continued the routine at each of the warm-up stations, relishing every jaw-dropping stare he got as he showed them all who they were dealing with. The complicated part of all this posturing was the fact that it was really messing with Wade’s head. Clara had already made her case as they walked to the practice field: they should do what they wanted to do, not what witchy Gretchen and their dad said.
    “Who does she think she is?” Clara had said, adding, “There’s no reason for us to do what she says.”
    Wade had tried to convince her that it was their duty to follow through with the plan.
    “They’ve been training us for what, three years? It’s not our problem, Wade. It’s not our war; it’s theirs. I don’t see why we have to be pawns on someone’s chess board.”
    But Wade always had to remember that Clara was incredibly persuasive. If she’d been arguing the other side of the case, that they should stick to the plan and do as they were told, she would have been every bit as convincing. And the problem with Clara, as he’d come to know over time, was that she was notorious for changing her mind.
    Still, he had to admit, it felt good to trounce a bunch of talentless normals. What fun it would be to sweep the games, take every event in the decathlon, and break all the world records while he was at it.
    By the time he and Clara were settled in for the night, awaiting the morning alarm that would send them onto the field, he still hadn’t decided which course of action he was going to take.
     
    Liz Brinn couldn’t believe her luck. She’d only been in the Western State for a little while, and already she’d managed to secure two tickets to the Field Games. And not just any two tickets, field level tickets. She was the talk of her social circle. No one could believe she had them. A bidding war broke out to buy the second ticket that went as high as six thousand Coin, a huge amount of Tablet cash she could have used to buy a whole closet full of new clothes. But it never really crossed her mind to sell the extra ticket. She knew it was a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the Field Games live and up close.
    “Where’d they come from?” Noah had asked her when Liz video-called him. Noah lived twenty-one buildings over, and it took almost an hour to traverse the passageways in order to meet up, which they tried to do at least once a day. But she’d been so excited, she had called him straightaway.
    “It says they’re a gift from the Field Games committee. I guess they do this sometimes for newbies like me.”
    “What if it’s a hoax? Maybe they’re not even real, and we’re going to get turned away at the gate.”
    “Come on, Noah. You know that’s not true. Just embrace it. We’re going to the Field Games!”
    The States were very hard on cybercriminal activity, even if it amounted to nothing more than a prank. If they caught you doing things like that, Coin would just disappear out of your account without warning. Your job assignment might go from entertainer to window cleaner. It happened. Liz and Noah were going, and they would be sitting close to the field itself. Still, it wasn’t until they were in the fourteenth row off the field that Noah finally gave in. They were holding hands, which Liz loved, and he leaned in for a long, warm kiss.
    “I can see you like these tickets,” Liz said.
    “I can’t believe this is real. It’s incredible. They’re going to run right past us.”
    It was a perfect summer morning, warm and soft, with a blue sky overhead. They both pulled out their Tablets and reviewed the list of events. First would be a series of men’s decathlon finals, then the women would be throwing in