Chapter 2: the last bit of money
Andem had thought he was special to be a speedster.
It was one thing to run 100 meters in 30 seconds, but to do it in the blink of an eye was something else entirely. He was super fast and he'd learned really early that that meant he had to hold back, when it came to dealing with regular people. Not many people could do what he could do back home. He'd gone his whole life being told he was special. He knew he was. He'd walked into the first few interviews believing that he would get somewhere, with his god-given talent.
But in Uyo, they were beyond human. They were super strong. They were super fast. There were special people everywhere he looked. After filling in his application form at the hiring firm, he'd been led into an arena with almost a hundred other applicants who were either, just as fast, much stronger, or both.
He knew he was going to be rejected again, when the fifth firm lined him on the side of the field with the people he'd known hadn't done so well. The woman in charge of the assessment, a black, tall pillar of a woman, had stood before them in her jacket and khakis, with a headset poised for comment that would be heard throughout the field. Calling the names off, just to send them away, her voice struck a painful cord in Andem's heart every time she got closer and closer to Usoro. With a last name that started with "U", he knew his assessment would be last, but it wouldn't help with the same because everyone in the field would hear the assessment anyway.
So, just as she said, "Usoro, Andem-"
He blurted out, "I'm an alpha."
That caused her to pause, as she flipped her clipboard shut and marched up to him, towering over him, even though Andem was not short.
"Your application made no mention of this."
"I…" he hesitated. "I-I haven't declared it yet," he said as his voice shook nervously.
"Why not?" she asked, frowning at him in disbelief.
"I just found out before I came to Uyo."
Narrowing her eyes at him, she tore off an acceptance slip, wrote his name on it, and added a huge asterisk to his name on her clipboard before she gave him the slip.
"You have until Monday, next week before this slip expires. Get yourself declared and show up to the office with an updated ID card that states your alpha status. Or you can forget about ever being an agent for lying to me. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Ma," he said with a bow as she marched away from him.
Andem was relieved to have gotten the chance that he didn't waste it. He went to the state secretariat, got tested, and applied for a new ID card that was going to be ready on Monday. It was cutting it close, but things were turning around for him. He couldn't believe his luck in becoming an alpha just before he came to Uyo. Superpowers were easily becoming common and accessible, but an alpha status was still supreme and he was just… lucky.
On Monday, armed with a new ID card, he reported to the office where he was given a list of choice companies that would gladly receive him. Nigerian Justice Dials (NJD) was at the top of the list. It wasn't a private firm, which meant he'd be working for the country and not for private interests. He didn't even care that it was the most expensive federal firm. He could afford it, and considering their curriculum, Andem knew he'd be deployed in a very short time if he kept his head down and did the work to better himself.
There were smaller firms, private firms that cost much less than NJD, but he wasn't interested. None of the bigger private firms were on the list, but he didn't care. They weren't his target firms anyway. NJD was the dream and NJD was where he was going to be.
As soon as he arrived on the NJD premises, he was sent straight into training with a group of four older betas. He was at the top of his class in combat training and surveillance. He wasn't the best in data collection seeing as his people skills were atrocious, but he was working on it. If he was ever in the position of having to walk from door to door to get information, he was going to have to do it. But beyond that, Andem was soaring. With his skills and his status as alpha, Andem knew he'd be a leader if they kept the team the way it was. He'd been training for this since he decided to go to Uyo.
Three months into his training at NJD, his father called.
"Come home, now," his father said.
"Daddy, please-"
"Don't let me come and find you in Uyo."
"Aniebiet can do it."
"Aniebiet is just a beta."
"Daddy, the-"
"If you don't come home, don't expect any money from me. After all, if you're too good for the family business, then the family business is too good for you."
The line cut.
Andem dug his head into his pillow and screamed. How could he have been so stupid? He'd put his parent's address as his address on the tests he'd taken at the secretariat and he hadn't even thought about it enough to call his brother to check it and intercept it. Now they were both in shit.
He sat awake in his bunk, breathing hard as he clutched his phone because this really couldn't be happening. He was the most promising trainee. His strength, speed, and agility had improved under tutelage. He was about to be fitted for technical enhancements and bumped up to join a team set to deploy much earlier than the team he was in at the moment.
Surely, his fate wasn't so horrible.
When his mother sent a text saying she was coming to Uyo to bring him home, Andem made himself immensely scarce. If they didn't see him, he was sure they would realize how important this all was for him. So he dodged her for two days till she left, dropping a package for him.
Andem took the padded envelope and locked it at the bottom of his box so that he could claim he was much too busy to open it. Soon, it was true enough. Because he got introduced to a new team with two older boys, both of whom were incredible soldiers. One was undeclared and a year older than Andem but the other was an alpha whose strength rivaled Andem's.
After another month, he was alerted to the fact that his training dues hadn't been paid.
"What?" Andem asked the stern woman in her tiny cubicle office.
"You are required to pay 75,300 naira, every month for your training."
"It's already been paid."
"You're a week behind payment," she explained, setting a payment schedule in front of him that Andem didn't understand but he was going to have to take her word for it that he was lacking in payment.
Since he was old enough to have a bank account, he'd had money in the account, with no questions asked. And that account had been filled in with NJD to receive periodic payments. As long as there was money in the account, his training fees were taken care of. He didn't understand how he'd suddenly run out of money, on such short notice.
He stared at his phone again, trying to figure out how to call his father and ask for money but somehow knowing what his answer would be already. When he'd gone round that bend a million times in his head, he finally dove into his box and decided to read his mother's letter. Which turned out to be short and rushed.
Andem,
Your father stopped sending you an allowance.
This should do for the next two months.
Love, Mom.
He read the letter over and over again before he unwrapped the stack of notes left for him by his mother. If he hadn't been busy enough, he would have wondered at his brothers' lack of calls and his mother's lack of renewed attempts to bring him home. As he understood it, his family had left him on his own.
And he was now stranded in Uyo.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone