Young Writers Society

This is the novel I worked on during both Camp NaNoWriMo months this past summer. It's a second draft, so please be gentle. I had previously thought that I had this character's voice figured out, but it turns out I have a terrible sense of that kind of thing with my own work, so please let me know if you feel like this slides out of Sienna's voice and into standard third person omniscient. If that's true, it will probably get better as I write her more, but I'm not sure whether or not it's happening.

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“They are calling themselves ‘The Psych Squad,’” said the reporter. Sienna dropped her shirt and stared at her TV screen, mouth agape. There had been a cluster of news stories a few years ago when Psychs first started cropping up, but since then, Psych stories had been rare. Sienna quickly picked up her shirt, yanked it over her head, and sat down with her nose a few inches from the screen. Sienna’s roommate, Wendy, rolled her eyes at Sienna’s intensity, but came over to watch.

The report cut to a low-resolution, slightly shaky video. The words “FOOTAGE CAPTURED BY BYSTANDER” emblazoned across the bottom of the screen would have confirmed Sienna’s suspicion that the video was recorded by a smartphone had she been reading it. She was focused on the scene on the television: five individuals dressed in solid colored martial arts uniforms—maybe from karate or Tae Kwon Do—with some kind of rope tied around their waists in lieu of the traditional belts. She couldn’t see any of their faces or even identify their skin tones, as they were all wearing gloves and what looked like ski masks. Aside from some discrepancies in height, the best way Sienna could figure to tell them apart was the fact that each one was wearing a different color scheme.

And they were definitely Psychs. Powerful ones, too. One or more of them must have been a telekinetic; Sienna was rapt as the group leapt in unison from a third-story window of a free medical clinic and levitated to ground level where an anti-Psych demonstration had spawned fist fights. Sienna’s eyebrows rose and she clapped a hand over her mouth as she watched the demonstrators kick and pummel several unfortunate souls who were curled up or sprawled on the ground.

“Jesus,” said Sienna, the sound muffled by her hand.

“I wonder if they got caught coming out of the clinic with papers saying they had Psychic Ability Syndrome,” Wendy mused.

“Since when have Psychphobes bothered with facts? Such as whether or not someone is actually a Psych?” said Sienna dryly, and Wendy considered that before nodding.

Considering their choice to wear martial arts uniforms, Sienna was surprised to see that the Psychs did no physical fighting or made any dramatic gestures. That is, until one of them—the leader of the group?—raised one fist high in the air. At that, pandemonium broke out as several rabble-rousers’ megaphones and signs flew from their hands and landed in a neat pile behind the five uniformed people, and the row of protestors nearest the five collapsed, some of them snoring. At least, Sienna thought she heard snoring before the shouts of panic drowned out all other noise. One corner of Sienna’s mouth turned up as the crowd dispersed, mostly shrieking in fear, some screaming anti-Psych slurs--Sienna heard "Psy-freak" several times--over their shoulders as they ran.

“Ha!” Sienna chuckled.

“Nice,” Wendy agreed.

The Psych Squad’s apparent leader, a person of average height dressed in a white martial arts uniform cross-hatched with black thread to create the appearance of white tessellating diamonds, lowered their arm and unclenched their fist. The Squad moved for the first time since their leap from the clinic’s roof, running to the wounded to examine their injuries. Sienna noticed one in particular, a tall, well-muscled figure in a bright blue uniform with a red cord tied about their waist, touched the faces of several injured and appeared to focus for a moment before moving on to the next wounded person.

“Whoa…is that one a healer?” Sienna wondered aloud.

Wendy’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t know Psychs could heal.”

“One of the first Psych stories I saw was about a little boy whose teachers saw him healing his own scraped knees on the playground,” said Sienna. “So yeah, some can.”

“God, Sienna. Are you that obsessed with Psychs or do you just have a ridiculous memory?”

Sienna blinked a few times, feeling her cheeks grow hot. “I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed. Just interested. I mean…I am a neuro major.”

The second that police sirens began to wail, the leader—it was now impossible for Sienna to think of them as anything else—moved one wrist to their mouth (did they have a microphone in their sleeve?) and Sienna saw their lips move. The leader then lifted both their arms up, palms to the sky. The rest of the team repeated the gesture and the group floated upwards as one. Sienna leaned forward, squinting, trying to see if she could discern where they were headed, but the broadcast cut back to the reporter, standing in front of the scene where the protest had occurred.

“The creatively named ‘squad’ is comprised of five individuals," said the reporter. It was Jared Collingsworth giving the report. Wendy thought that he was beyond handsome, and sometimes watched the news with Sienna just to ogle Collingsworth. Sienna didn’t get it. Ordinarily, her opinion on Collingsworth was that he had a good speaking voice that was well suited to being a reporter. Right now, he could be speaking Pig Latin after inhaling helium and she would still be glued to the screen.

Collingsworth continued. "They are calling themselves Cerebra, Sandwoman, Druid, Foresight, and The Crow. There is speculation that that last one took their name from the eponymous character from the comic book by James O’Barre. One can only wonder if, should this individual be identified, there will be copyright issues,” said Collingsworth.

Sienna scowled. She knew she wasn’t the best at identifying vocal tones, but Collingsworth sounded awfully sardonic when reciting the names and referring to the squad as “creatively named”. And what was that line about copyright issues? It sounded ad-libbed and amateurish. That wasn’t like Collingsworth; he seemed to be a genuinely impartial reporter—hard to find these days—not a disrespectful douche. Sienna tried to shelve her irritation in order to separate the important information from the reporter’s sudden lack of professionalism.

“They seem to show up whenever anti-Psych protests become violent. That’s right, folks, at least one of them seems to be a telepath who can let their friends know whenever a group is exercising their first amendment right to protest the special treatment the population afflicted with Psychic Ability Syndrome is getting. Then the Psych Squad shows up to disrupt the protest, possibly because they, as Psychs, feel it is in their best interest to do so.”

Wendy quirked an eyebrow, and Sienna yelled “Oh, what the hell?” aloud. She continued, “That was pure editorial!”

Sienna had learned quite a bit about journalism in her First Year Composition class (more from a boy trying to impress her with his extensive journalistic knowledge than from the class itself, but Sienna was glad to have gotten something good out of that awkward situation; at least the guy had known what he was talking about and wasn't just mansplaining). It came in handy while she watched the news every morning while she was getting ready for class or lab.

Speaking of which…

Sienna checked her phone for the time and cursed. Between the video of the Psych Squad and the bizarrely anti-Psych sentiment from Collingsworth, she had gotten caught up in the broadcast and had forgotten to keep dressing herself and brushing her teeth while she watched. In her defense, Collingsworth’s douchery that morning had been very distraction-worthy; usually SWBC news was the most trustworthy news program, as well as the most progressive. Hell, one of their anchors was a woman of color and the other was an Armenian trans man. When the latter anchor, Dan Markarian, replaced Sienna’s parents favorite anchor after his retirement, they had muttered about the channel being “too PC” and started watching a different station for their news. Sienna had continued watching SWBC, and that had become yet another reason why she and her parents didn’t talk much anymore. Also, how was Sienna, who was a neuroscience student begging her advisor to let her do a concentration in Psychic Ability Syndrome Studies, not supposed to be transfixed by that display by the Psych Squad? Either they were all telekinetics, or one or two were strong enough to levitate five people. Damn.