“Not yet,” I said, shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal, even though it felt like something inside my brain was itching. It’s been over a week since I was in someone’s dream, the AM having made good on their promise to keep me isolated from other people at night. They’ve been running tests on me while I sleep, putting that cap on me to measure brainwaves and monitoring my vitals or whatever, but they manage to keep their distance. It’s been good to get a full night’s rest without any big black voids or trips to high school, even if it means the one interesting thing about me has been taken away before I even have time to explore it.

“Not yet, so you’re going to?” Sharon asked.

“I don’t know, I assume they’ll have me do it,” I said. “But I’m not sure what good that’ll do. I don’t really know what I’m here to learn. It’s not like dreamdiving is an ability that can help people or even help me. The rest of my family all got these cheat codes for life, and I’m stuck with … this.”

“What do you mean ‘stuck’?” Dr. Loving followed up quickly and calmly, but I should have known that I’d just thrown out chum for the sharks. And for some reason, I couldn’t avoid tossing out more.

“I mean,” I sighed, “my mom gets to see the future and, yeah, she doesn’t let it completely dictate her life, but she does use it when it’s important. And my dad is a telekinetic who works as a contractor! He’s so much faster and cheaper because he doesn’t need half the equipment that the regular guys need, or the amount of people, because he can just use his brain to help him lift stuff.”

“He’s out in the open?” Marco blurted, his eyes wide in horror.

“No, no, not at all.” I rushed to clarify. There was one thing that had been abundantly clear from my scant interactions with other Atypicals so far: everyone was terrified of getting caught. But it’s not like we’re in a comic book and we have to hide from the government or else—we’re all here, sitting at the AM, talking about the ins and outs of our abilities. Who do we have to hide from?

Other people is the answer.