The world was always made up complicated matters that no one would be able to understand completely, Kim knew that for a fact. She had seen of the most brilliant minds gathered together and get stumped on a number of things. One of the matters that had stumped plenty of fine minds was, well, her.
Why was Kim able to trip up so many mental giants? Well, it had to do with the fact that Kim was normal. Sure, she was a monster athlete, a master martial artist, a rather intelligent creature, and good at almost anything that she decided to touch. It probably would not seem normal anywhere else, but where she lived, it was extra-normal.
The problem was that Kim had gotten the way that she was through sheer grit, practice, studying, and will power. It was almost unheard of where she came from and that was because the town of Middleton was populated by super humans. They were all seriously super humans in some way and Kim was, well, normal.
Middleton was actually the headquarters for Global Justice, a sort of freelance intelligence service for the global community. All of their field agents had some sort of super human ability. Kim was training to be a field agent, even though she did not have any powers. No one really doubted that she would one day be a field agent, maybe even the best, despite the fact that they could abandon her in almost any part of the world and she would genetically fit in with the rest of the population.
Usually, if someone in Middleton was born without a power, the person had a superior intellect. Most people would have expected Kim to come out as a super genius because the family that she came from was more inclined to be geniuses than holders of superpowers. Her father was one of the most brilliant rocket scientists that the city had ever seen and her mother was the top surgeon in the city. Both of them came from long lines of mechanical and medical geniuses, so people thought that Kim would probably fall into one of those categories, but Kim was not a genius. She was very intelligent, yes, but no one in Middleton would call her a genius.
Nothing about Kim was brought on due to birth. Everything that she was, she had to work hard to become. She could keep up with super-humans because she pushed herself to do that. It just did not make any sense.
In all of the years that GJ had been a settled organization, they had always worked with two types of people from their own rank and file. Everyone was supposed to be super-powered or super-smart. No one knew when it happened or how it happened exactly, but there were dozens of theories floating around. Kim contradicted almost all of them by being an average human being and that was why scientists were scratching their heads.
It was a bit humorous that in a town where everyone was a freak by outside standards, Kim was the abnormal one. It was a bit difficult growing up average where she came from. When she was in grade school, kids used to use their powers to pick on her. It did not work out as well as the kids expected because most of the things that they tried, Kim seemed to see coming, even if they did something that was planned out by one of the genius kids.
School in Middleton was something like school in the rest of the world. The key words there were “something like.” The point of “school” in Middleton was purely for social reasons and not educational, even though they had classes. The kids just rarely paid attention to the lessons. It was hard enough trying to get a group of regular little kids to sit down and listen, so it was nigh impossible to get a group, even a small group, of super-powered kids to sit down.
Most of the children’s education in Middleton was handled by private tutors, usually retired agents that had similar powers to the child’s ability. The tutor also handled the basics of education for the child and took the child for most of the week. Tutors had children for six days from anywhere between eight to ten hours every day. Regular school would have the kids for the remaining day.
Almost every kid was proud of the tutor they got because everyone’s tutor was a big shot in someway. Kim had been left out when everyone got tutors at about the age of five. She remembered Ron grinning from ear to ear for close to a month because he got Timothy North as a tutor. Ron’s talent was somewhat different from Mister North’s powers, but they were both animal based and that was the best that anyone could do for Ron.
Ron had been the only person back then that did not tease or taunt Kim for not having a power. He could sort of understand her plight, mostly because his powers came and went as they pleased. They still sort of came and went as they pleased, which did not bother him much since he thought that his ability was an evil joke from the gods more than anything else. Hey, anything that had to do with monkeys was just evil in his opinion.
For a while, going to school had been tough for Kim because she was the only one without a tutor. That was when the kids found a weapon that they could use against her, words. They teased her relentlessly to the point that it was hard to believe that they were going to grow up to the good guys. A few times, they even got to her. She would go home in tears, saying that she never wanted to go to school again.
Kim’s parents always tried to comfort her back then. They would tell her soothing words that would help her work up the courage to face those little bullies the next time that she went to school, which had been every day for her back then because her parents had jobs during the day and they had to take her somewhere. She just could not stay in the house alone.
Though kids only went to school once a week, the school was open every day because tutors set the kids schedule. Some tutors would want their students in school on different days and it was open all of the time for that reason. Kim got the privilege of being teased by different people everyday.
Her parents were understandably worried about Kim having to go to such a hostile environment everyday, but it seemed that they were not the only ones that were worried. One day, none other than Doctor Betty Director, the leader of their whole city and organization, showed up to claim Kim as her pupil. Betty was familiar with the Possible family since they were the best at what they did and they helped GJ run smoothly because of that.
Betty probably would never forget the day that she came to be Kim’s tutor. She had never seen a child look so depressed. It was as if Kim had seen a battlefield from the look in her olive eyes. The little redheaded girl had been sitting in the backyard in a sandbox, digging a hole. When Betty inquired why she was doing that, Kim did not even bother to look up as she responded with “I’m going to bury myself here.”
The one-eyed woman felt pity for Kim, but she was also a bit relieved. She bent down to Kim’s level and introduced herself, which got Kim’s attention. The child turned her attention to her guest and looked like she was greatest thing ever. It was clear that Kim knew who Betty was.
Betty asked Kim a strange question then; at least, it was strange in Kim’s opinion. She wanted to know if Kim remembered her. The child answered honestly by shaking her head. It was all that she could do because her voice was not working. Betty smiled and assured Kim that it was all right that she did not remember her. She then promised Kim something that meant the world to the little abused child. She vowed that Kim was special.
Kim felt special from that moment on. After all, the great Elizabeth Director was going to be her tutor. The person that was in charge of everything around them was going to teach her. Kim knew that she had better not disappoint the woman. So, she planned to make sure that Betty knew that she had picked a good pupil.
Finally, Kim had something to boast about when all of the other children started going on about their great tutors and everything. When she first told them that Doctor Director was her tutor, she had been accused of being a liar by everyone around her. They even beat her up for saying something so slanderous against their leader and then they all felt like idiots when Betty Director came to get Kim from school that day.
Betty had stared at Kim for a while when she retrieved the bruised child. Kim was not sure why she was being watched so closely, but she suspected that it had something to do with the fact that she had been beaten up. She hoped that Doctor Director did not decide that she did not want such a weak pupil, which was not going through the brunette’s head at all. Kim did silently vow that day to never lose again and so far, she was keeping that promise.
Betty worked Kim hard, but Kim worked herself harder. Betty kept Kim with her for twelve hours most of the time and sometimes, she kept the girl for the whole week. When Betty let Kim go though, the child did not take it as a sign to rest. She took it as a sign to practice.
Kim would do katas in her room when she was supposed to be sleeping. Her parents caught her a few times and they found themselves having to punish Kim for working too hard. Kim did not pay much attention to punishments. If she was forbidden from doing her martial arts, then she was reading books. She was punished sometimes because she was caught reading after hours too. If she could not read or do katas, she would work on her stretching to make sure that she remained flexible and agile.
It quickly got to the point where Kim could keep up, if not best, any of her peers. They could not understand it. She was normal, so she should not be able to beat them, they all thought. Some people even accused Doctor Director of doing something to Kim, no matter how much Betty insisted that she did not do anything.
It was about that time when scientists started taking an interest in Kim. They were always doing blood work on her, hoping that her mother did not find out because pissing off her mother tended to be a bad idea for anyone that worked in the medical sector of GJ. So far, blood work was only telling them that she was normal as normal could be. They even did DNA work to make sure that Kim was a Possible. If her mother found out about that, a lot of doctors were going to be moving out of the medical sector or losing their heads, and that would be if they were lucky.
Betty Director humored the doctors. She just wanted to see if they would find anything. But, it seemed like they were not finding anything worth anything. Now they were only annoying when they wanted to test Kim and the girl had the right to tell them to go to Hell. Kim tried to cooperate with them more often than not, but that was only if they explained what they were doing with her blood. She often wanted to make sure that she was not going to pass herself one day on the street, even though to clone a human, there were all kinds of paperwork and clearances that no one wanted to bother with.
Kim strolled into the command center of Global Justice. She had clearance to go almost anywhere in the building, but she usually kept to the gym, the library, and a special workout room that she had. Some people thought that Betty was spoiling Kim because she did have a special training room, but some other people thought that Betty was trying to groom Kim to take over when she retired. They were wrong on both accounts, but Betty never explained what she was doing with Kim.
The one-eyed woman did not see the point in explaining what she was doing with her pupil, not because she was the boss, but because a tutor was never obliged to say what she was doing with her pupil. The only time a tutor had to explain what she was doing with her student was when issues where brought before a council because someone was worried about the student’s wellbeing. No one worried about Kim’s wellbeing.
The redhead waved to people as she made her way to the locker room. She changed out of her street clothes and into her workout clothes. She then went to find her tutor.
“Hey, Kim,” Betty said when the girl entered her office. The redhead was the only person that could come in at anytime.
“Hey, are you busy?” Kim asked.
“I’ve got some paperwork to go over. You’re about to use the training room?” the one-eyed woman inquired.
“I can go lift some weights or something,” the teen answered.
“No. We need to do some measuring and everything, so go to the room and I’ll be there in a little while,” Betty replied.
“Is my mom going to be there today?”
“I’ll call her up and see, but I’m not sure.”
Kim nodded. She did not understand why completely, but sometimes her mother came to watch her go through her routines. She used to ask about it when she was younger, but now she did not mind it much. Her mother said that she just liked watching her in action and she wanted to make sure that Kim was not working too hard.
Kim went into her special training room. It was built by a team that was supervised by her father and Doctor Director. Everything in it was padded with sensors to measure Kim’s speed and power in all of her moves. It was also rigged with all kinds of traps to keep her on her toes. She had been injured in there plenty of times when she was younger.
The redhead did some stretching while waiting for the word from the observation deck that was at the back of the room. The observation deck was blocked off by some of the strongest fiberglass. Kim touched her toes, pull her leg above her head, tugged at her arms, pulled her other leg above her head, and then rolled her shoulders.
“Go ahead,” a voice commanded Kim.
The redhead sprang into action, kicking at the nearest pole and registering data to the control deck. She moved on, flipping away from that pole as a spike shot out of the thing, nearly hitting her. She had been punctured on several occasions by not reacting fast enough to the surprise attacks that awaited her around the whole room.
Betty watched Kim move and watched the monitors too. Every time that she watched Kim, she could hardly believe her eyes. The girl seemed to improve every time that she saw her. She was fast as lightning it seemed with the agility that a cat would envy. Even her stamina was ridiculous. Most of the field agents could not even keep up with her.
“You wanted to see me?” Mrs. Possible inquired as she entered the observation deck.
“Kim was just wondering if you’d be watching and I thought it might be a good idea. After all, when was the last time you saw her in action?” Betty replied.
“Everything’s all right, though, right?” the surgeon asked.
“Oh, yeah. Everything is completely under control. It’s amazing to see. Maybe it is just her,” Betty replied.
“Why do you say that?”
“Watch how good she is. I mean, I could get anyone else her age killed doing this, but she’ll do it with no problem,” Betty said.
“What?”
“Kim,” Betty said into the intercom.
“Yes?” the teen replied while throwing a combination on the wall.
“Recite all of the presidents in alphabetical order while continuing your work,” Betty ordered.
“First or last names?” Kim inquired.
“First.”
Kim began naming the presidents in alphabetical order while going on with her work. She leaped out of the way as a column of fire shot out of the wall. She kept on with the presidents as she saw that she was about to land on a bear-trap. The trap snapped a bit too soon and Kim was able to land on the teeth, but quickly flipped off as she noticed that it was starting to open again. She made sure to keep going with the presidents.
“Do you see how focused she can stay?” Betty said to Mrs. Possible.
“It is rather amazing,” the redhead replied.
“She’ll keep going even if I up the level in the room.”
“Can she do that on the highest level?”
“No, she’s not that good yet,” the one-eyed woman replied.
“So, you’re sure this is her, just her?” Mrs. Possible inquired.
“I’m pretty sure it is.”
“So far, you’ve been right on,” the redhead commented.
“Let’s hope,” Betty said.
Mrs. Possible only nodded. She hoped that it was all Kim and her hard work. She prayed that her daughter remained normal. Well, as normal as she could be while walking on her hands and still making sure to recite the presidents in alphabetical order by their first names, not to mention registering the numbers that she was on all of her training equipment. Hard to believe that they lived somewhere that considered Kim normal.
Next time: Kim and Ron go to school and Kim gets into a thing with Bonnie.