(1) Barrel scrapers

Mr Holt had called us out to assemble on the rural side of the Blue Gulf again for a training session. I was early, so I stood on the cliff edge looking across the width of the gulf to the lower side where the city gleamed in the sun.

Narrow stairs carved into the rocks made precarious paths with wooden rails down to the tiny sandy or rocks shores at the foot of the tall cliffs. At the moment, the beaches below were hidden by the morning fog. The cliff on the city side had more grey and blue compared to the sedimentary rock of the cliff on which I was standing on this side of the Gulf.

Below the cliff, morning fog swirled, blocking from view any of the many caves in the cliff wall. The constant roar of the sea water crashing against the cliff face could be barely heard from up here. The sea wind whipped my hair up momentarily and then died down slowly, allowing my hair to drift back down into a mess.

I heard the soft sound of someone breathing out of time with the warm breeze whipping my hair about my face. There was the faint sound of his clothes rustling and soft footsteps on dry grass and shifting pebbles. He was obviously trying to sneak up on me. From the pattern of movement, the rhythm of his breathing and the weight of his footfall, I could tell who it was.

"Sarden," I greeted without turning around.

"You're always early," complained my classmate and colleague, Sarsen Bird. It wasn't his real name. None of us knew each other's real names, but because of how irritating and clueless this clown could be, we called him Sarden Fish. "No matter how early I try to be, you're always here first. And I can never scare you, no matter how careful I am. It's not fair."

"You're too noisy," I replied, looking down at the shining big shopping centre complex called 'The Edge', on the other side of the cliff and how far away it was.

I wasn't perfect at measuring distances with my eyes yet, but I was improving. My estimates were becoming more accurate. At this narrower part of the gulf, the other side was only about forty to sixty metres away. The narrowest point of the gulf was about thirty-three metres. It was where the suspension bridge and chair lift was built. That was several hundred metres away to the right of where I was standing, at least before the pointy end of the gulf several kilometres further inland. The widest part of the gulf was further seaward and was more than a kilometre wide.

"How?" Sarden sounded like he was pouting. "Tell me. I need to pass the next assessment and I still can't figure out how to improve."

"There's a wind today. Your clothing is loose and flaps in the wind. Your breathing was noisy and didn't blend well with the sound of the breeze. You need to work on your balance and foot placing maybe."

I tossed my head back to glance at him in his purple and black windbreaker. The dull material had a slight sheen to it when the light hit it in certain ways.

"Nice jacket," I commented, stepping away from the tufty edge of the crumbly cliff edge. Unlike the city side of the gulf, the rural side was more dangerous. The cliff edge often broke and fell down without warning. Thankfully not when anyone was ever standing right at the edge. At least, not as far as I knew. "Is it new?"

"Yeah. There's a new shop in The Edge called Parapet. They've got some nice designs there. You should check it out. You're always wearing the same clothes. It's on level three in the West Wing near Warped Jeans," Sarden patted my shoulder with a grin, while I half-heartedly batted his hand away.

"Thanks," I rolled my eyes at his jab at my thriftiness. "I'll check it out some time."

Being thrifty was a virtue but such virtues were no longer considered virtuous in today's materialistic society. Besides, I had to save money whenever I could. I wasn't as rich as Sarden who didn't have to send money home.

I sat down on a rock.

"What were you doing just now?" Sarden asked with curiosity. "Don't tell me you suddenly upgraded your abilities and were wondering whether you can jump across the Gulf?"

I laughed and didn't reply. That was exactly what I had been considering but if I admitted to it, Sarden would freak out and tell the rest of our team when they turned up. Then they'd start discussing why and whether I was contemplating suicide. It was an impossible jump. Everyone knew that.

Everyone except for me.

Everyone in the team had been chosen out of relative mediocrity. We had all been ordinary people of some sort, but someone somewhere had noticed us for our hidden talents. We'd been pulled out from our ordinary, everyday lives and trained. Our talents were honed. My only talent was jumping and leaping long distances. Although my results weren't that much better than an elite athlete's so far, I was working on it. I had the feeling that with a bit more practice, I would be able to make superhuman leaps more consistently and actually make myself useful.

I barely scraped past any of the other tests, beating Sarden by one or two seats. Even with all the hard work I put in, I could barely defend myself in a fight. So if I wanted to improve my poor image, being able to consistently make high or long and accurate leaps and jumps were my only hope.

Sarden was my fellow barrel scraper. His ability was meant to be flexibility in both body and mind. Meant to. Even in our new fledgling team, the two of us rarely played active roles, needing to be protected more often than not. We barely even played support roles because we couldn't stand our own against many criminals. I didn't know why we hadn't yet been dismissed back to our boring normal lives. Why had they chosen such boring and ordinary people as ourselves who had barely responded to their training?

I was a slow learner and a dreamer who hated having to leave the dorm to face the world and all its inconsistent unpredictability. Not that anyone in the dorm ever talked to me and I didn't dare talk to them either. Besides, the people in my dorm changed so frequently that I had lost track of who they were and who was living with me now. When I did leave the shared staff dorm, I was a competitive high achiever that had never achieved any heights beyond the upper end of average. Then again, standing out in this society wasn't necessarily a good thing. Being considered competent in this team didn't mean acceptance.

I mean, look at Mary Belle. She was competent. She was pretty and petty, and no one in the team liked her. Probably because of her nasty mouth and tendency to stab people in the back.

Flint could be considered competent too, but nobody liked a prankster who was always playing mean pranks and bullying people (like me) until they wanted to cry. Who could trust him? We didn't know when his words could be trusted and even if we could trust his words, we couldn't trust him because wasn't reliable. His positioning was often off because he'd been too busy ogling other women and so caused us to lose the criminal and have to chase them for another half day.

Big Brother was competent and reliable. He was the most likeable, experienced and the senior agent under our team leader, overseeing our fractured fledgling group of newbies fresh out of the Academy. I liked him. He was calm, controlled and prevented the others from bullying me. The only problem was that when he punished them, I would still be included. He said if there was disunity in the team, it was the whole team's responsibility and therefore the whole team must be punished. He was our team's voice. We all listened and obeyed him because he was so much better and stronger than the four of us combined. If only he didn't hide the bullying from our team leader and mentor, my teacher, Mr Holt, then I might think he was the perfect agent.

People had their own rules and ways of thinking. I couldn't always understand them. Even so, I knew enough that my recent individual training might just allow me to jump in a way that would make me look like I was flying. Coupled with my tendency to stay unnoticed and fly under people's radar, I felt it was very possible that I could now leap the distance from this side of the gulf to the other and nobody would be any wiser.