Revive by Tracey Martin Page A

e-sheets, but dead tree paper. How annoyingly archaic.
    I suppose I should have expected as much when I saw the file cabinets, but I was hoping. It would take long enough to suck the data I need off eight-hundred-seventy-seven possible files, but actually paging through sheets of paper is going to take even longer. Honestly, until I’d arrived at RTC, I had no idea how many people and places still used dead trees. We never used real paper back home.
    Gritting my teeth, I grab “Abraham, Michael” and point my flashlight beam inside. I feel a little creepy reading people’s medical files, so I try not to linger on the details, just find the clues I need and move on. Fortunately, the information I’m searching for can be discovered—or not—fairly quickly.
    Still, I learn way more about my fellow students than I care to. Broken bones, torn ligaments, appendicitis, Type 1 diabetes—this is all I need to know. Which boy has chlamydia and who it appears he gave it to? That, I could have lived without.
    I’m here for hours. By the time I put “Zodrakis, Christine” away, I’ve hit up everyone on my list and the sun will be rising soon. Some people’s injuries and illnesses rule them out easily, but others I can’t be so sure about.
    Like Audrey. She was treated for an ear infection her freshman year, but what does that tell me? Ear infections are caused by bacteria. They require an immune system response, which isn’t the same thing as a healing response, and that’s what I actually need to know.
    Or what about Chase? There’s a note about him pulling a muscle at a track meet last year, but no follow-up and no information on whether he was able to compete for the rest of the season. So was it not a serious injury, or did he heal amazingly fast?
    Because that’s the key to discovering X’s identity—he or she will heal from injuries like no human should. Yet my information about what that sort of healing means in practice is sketchy enough to give me doubts about many of my findings. X could be a good faker too, especially if he or she is trying to keep their mutant status a secret. And seriously, who wouldn’t want to keep that sort of freakishness a secret?
    So this is a start, nothing more.
    As I lock up and cut through the grounds again, I make plans for next steps. I need to dig deeper into the few details we have of X’s mutations for clues, cross-reference my remaining pool of possibilities with their social security numbers, and get to work hacking into insurance company databases. Oh, and I need to start pestering people like Audrey and Chase for details on their trauma-free medical histories.
    Lost in these thoughts, I climb the stairs to my floor and open the lounge door a crack. Then I pause, startled by the sound of a guy’s voice. The lounge is dark, but outside lights cast shadows along the floor. I search for the one that doesn’t match the furniture and determine the speaker is on the other side of the sofa.
    Although I doubt another student would think twice about me wandering around in the middle of the night, I have no good excuse for being out this late. If they ask, I don’t feel like concocting one. Then two things happen at once to make it clear I don’t want to be seen. I recognize the guy’s voice as Kyle’s, and I hear him say one word: “AnChlor.”
    My grip on the door handle tightens with my surprise. Whoever Kyle’s speaking to it must be over the phone because I can’t hear a reply. After the pause, he adds: “I couldn’t tell. My eyes were burning too much, and I couldn’t see.”
    He’s talking about the pep rally. He must be. So much for no one discovering what I did. But how did Kyle figure it out? Or how did whoever Kyle is talking to figure it out?
    Few people in the world should be able to recognize AnChlor, and a nineteen-year-old student at RTC