The Traitor's Portal

Jamie awoke to a low humming in her bedroom. She looked around for the source, but couldn’t find what was humming. She decided it would be best to just silence it and address it later, which was a bit frustrating. She waved her hand, dissatisfied but not having any better ideas, and the sound stopped. 

Since school had been out Jamie had spent a lot of time training herself and her friends at her treehouse and her late father’s house by the lake. Jamie was one of several teenagers that had been test subjects for a medicine that had given them superpowers, and, being an omnikinetic, she could control anything and everything down to a molecular level. 

She would discuss this mysterious sound with them when she saw them later.

Jamie sat up and reached for her phone. It was Friday, the day that the superhumans came to Jamie’s house to report news and do research and to try to find out if there were other members of their company. So far, in five Fridays, they had found two new superhumans, Caroline and Curt. Neither of them had figured out what their powers were yet. That was several weeks ago. Chloe and Collin, the main investigators, hadn’t found any new leads in a couple of weeks. Jamie was almost relieved by this, but it made her suspicious and worried that there was something they were missing.

After Jamie had texted the superhumans, she put on her favorite blue plaid flannel and high waisted black jeans, then tucked in her shirt like always. She sighed. Wow, did I miss this shirt. She thought to herself. She hadn’t worn this shirt since before she had met Chris and gotten Courtney to leave the cool kids.

Just then, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it!” Jamie yelled. Her mom was used to having superpowered teens in her house at this point, but she had not taken the news well at first. The doorbell rang again. “I’m coming! Give me a second!” Jamie yelled again, a little annoyed but sprinting to the door nonetheless. Chloe tended to be a little extra, so Jamie was sure that was who was at the door. 

Jamie opened the door to find the whole crew waiting on the porch. “Hey guys. What’s up?” Jamie said, stepping aside and inviting them in. “Where’s Caroline?” she asked.

“She couldn’t get out of the house. Her mom had a meeting and needed Caroline to stay home,” Curt responded. 

“Alright, that’s fine. Anyone find any new leads this week?” Jamie asked, leading them into her room. 

Courtney meekly raised a hand.

“Really?! Who?” The whole group asked, curiosity about this potential new lead making them stop and look at Courtney in wonder.

“Her name is Crisi. I think she might be an umbrakinetic,” Courtney continued as she made herself a comfortable seat on Jamie’s bed.

“Whoa. She can control light and shadow?” Chris remarked.

“I think so. She was standing under a tree in broad daylight and I could hardly see her,” Courtney said.

“Well that’s interesting. How do you know she’s not an erebokinetic? Did you see her control light at some point?” Jamie said, knowing that Courtney was someone that could make assumptions a lot.

“Yes. She stood under the stars in an open field and made them grow brighter,” Courtney announced.

The conversation at that point was cut short by a loud, deep humming coming from Jamie’s closet. “I thought I silenced that,” Jamie yelled over the thrumming.

“What do you mean by that? You heard this before?” Courtney asked.

“I woke up to a quieter version of that this morning, and I was just going to tell you about it once you got over here.” Jamie yelled again, silencing the thrumming. 

“That’s better.” Jamie said as she gritted her teeth against the effort it took to control the sound, her voice strained and face getting paler by the second. 

“Let me help,” Chloe said. Jamie relaxed a bit when Chloe put an air bubble around the sound.

Curt cleared his throat. Everyone looked in his direction. “Don’t you think we should maybe find the source of the humming?” he asked.

“He has a good point,” Collin said. Everyone murmured their agreement, looking around Jamie’s room.

“Um…. Guys, the humming was coming from the closet,” Jamie pointed out.

Chloe smacked her forehead. “Of course! Oh my gosh.” She walked over to the door, carefully opening it. Inside, amongst Jamie’s casual t-shirts and mismatched shoes, was a swirling blackish-purple abyss.

“Come on guys, I can’t hold it open much longer,” said a boy’s voice on the other side.

“OH MY GOSH IT”S A PORTAL!” Courtney gushed. “How cool is that?!”

“It’s not. It could be dangerous.” Chris said.

“Are you coming or not?” the voice on the other side of the portal said.

“Somebody should go to investigate,” Curt said.

“Fine. I’ll go first. If and/or when I call, follow me,” Jamie said, walking up to the portal. After one deep breath, she stepped through. She felt as though her body was twisting and stretching in convulsing motions, but it only lasted for a couple seconds. 

Jamie looked around at a small, square room. The only thing of interest was the boy who was apparently responsible for the portal. Nothing appeared to be dangerous. She quickly turned back to the portal. “You’re good,” Jamie called.

Seconds later, the rest of the group was standing in the room, looking around at the blue bed and cerulean walls. 

“Um, hi. I’m Carson,” The voice from before said. The group turned around and faced where the portal had been and saw a short teenage boy with tousled blonde hair and eyes the color of thunderheads. “And you are…?” he said.

“Jamie.”

“Courtney.” Courtney waved.

“Chloe.” Chloe winked at Carson.

“Collin.” Collin raised his hand.

“Chris.” Chris did a little salute.

“Curt.” Curt nodded.

“Good to meet you. This is my house. I saw you through a viewing portal last week.  You seemed to be doing power training or something, and I knew I needed to contact you.  This,” he paused and made a small portal that showed them Jamie’s room between his hands, “is the only way I can talk to people. My mom is...interesting. If you want, we can go back to your house, Jamie.” Carson was obviously more interested in Jamie than the others in a weird (and kind of creepy) way. It made her a bit uncomfortable.  

“Yeah. My mom will be worried if she walks in and finds us gone...oh! And she’s making fruit skewers!” Jamie said.

“Yes!” The group quietly cheered. Even Carson seemed excited. 

“Carson, can you show us how you make a portal?” Jamie asked inquisitively.

“Yeah. You just do this,” he said as he twisted his arms in a circle and a portal appeared.

“Ok. Hopefully I don’t ever need that. We’ll discuss how you learned to do that later. Come on guys, let’s go,” Jamie said, and everyone stepped through a new portal back into Jamie’s room. 

Just as they were getting situated, Jamie’s mom walked in, carrying a tray of fruit skewers. Everyone said thank you and took a few off of the tray, immediately starting to eat them.

“So, Carson. Do you mind telling us a bit about yourself?” Jamie asked.

“Sure. I can make portals. My full name is Carson William Richardson. My mom is a scientist as well as a nurse. My dad is a jeweler. That’s pretty much all there is to know about me. Any questions?”

“First of all, how did you learn to make portals?” Jamie asked.

“I was late for school one day and made one by accident. I have a really good memory and tried it again when I got home, but imagined the portal going to a different place than school.”

“Ok. Do you know what the farthest distance you can make a portal go is?”

“Yes. I can go all over the U. S. but not out of it. I tried going to Canada, Mexico, and England.” Carson said, looking at the ground sadly.

“What’s the best part about your power?” Courtney asked, taking the juice out of her pineapple chunk and putting the orb in her mouth. Carson’s jaw dropped. “Yeah, I’m a hydrokinetic. You act surprised,” Courtney said.

“Yeah. I am. Do all of you have powers?”

“Yes. Everyone go around and list your powers,” Jamie said.

“I’m a hydrokinetic. You saw what that does,” Courtney said.

“Uh huh.” Carson nodded.

“I’m a pyrokinetic. That’s fire,” Chris said.

“I am an aerokinetic, that means I can control wind. And air. And- you get the point,” Chloe said.

“I’m a telekinetic. I can move things with my mind.” Collin said.

“I’m an omnikinetic, which means I can control anything and everything, and Caroline, who couldn’t come over today, may be an argokinetic and be able to control plants. We still don’t know what Curt will be,” Jamie said. 

“Ok, how do you guys know all these names?” Carson asked.

“When you have powers, you do research.” Jamie shrugged.

“Alright. What do you call the power to bend and manipulate space?” Carson asked skeptically.

“Spatial manipulation,” Jamie said casually.

“Huh.” Carson said.

“Yep. It’s weird, I know. Now, Courtney, is Crisi coming?” Jamie turned her attention to Courtney. 

“She’s on her way. I texted her to come over before we went through the portal.” Courtney said.

As Courtney popped another piece of fruit into her mouth the doorbell rang. “There she is!”

They heard the front door open and a few seconds later Jamie’s mom walked in leading a short, blonde girl with deep blue eyes. “You have a guest. Crisi, do you want some fruit skewers?” she asked.

“No, thank you. Hey Court!” Crisi said as Jamie’s mom walked away.

“Hi Sisi!” Courtney said, hugging the new girl.

Crisi introduced herself to the 6. “My name is Crisi, but you guys can call me Sisi.”

“Sounds good. Now, Crisi, or rather, Sisi, can you show us your powers?” Jamie said.

“Sure.” Sisi cut the room in half, one side pitch black and the other blindingly bright.

“Yep. Definitely an Umbrakinetic,” Jamie said, shielding her face from the light. “That’s good. You can stop now.”

Sisi dimmed half the room and lightened the other, and all was back to normal. Well, as normal as it can get when you are sitting in a room with 7 teenagers that have superpowers. 

After filling Crisi in about Carson, the 6 teens started to continue their research.

Jamie looked at the clock. Crisi had arrived at 12:25, and it was somehow 12:21. “Carson, you can only control space, correct?”  Jamie asks, almost positive she already knew the answer.

“Yes, that would be true.” Carson said, nodding.

“Curt. Did you do this?”

“What do you-” Curt started, but Jamie cut him off.

“Look at the clock. It was 12:25 when Crisi got here.”

“Oh my gosh. I’m a chronokinetic. I can control TIME?! Yes!” Curt pumped his fist.

“Ok. Glad we figured that out,” Courtney said.

“Anyways, Carson. Will you make us a portal? It doesn’t matter where it goes,” Jamie said.

“Sure,” Carson said, smirking. Once he had the portal set up, he let the other 6 go through first, closing the portal behind them without going through it. He went back to his house through yet another portal.

“Uh, guys. Carson just turned us in. Look at where we are,” Chris said. 

Jamie cursed under her breath, walking around and trying to get a sense of the plain, very jail-cell-esque space that she had only heard about from one person. The Ringmaker.