Her question lingered between them, almost swallowed by the cafeteria noise.
"Espers?" Kieran repeated, spoon halfway to his mouth. "Like mind readers and people who shoot lightning from their hands? Those Espers?"
Elias frowned slightly. "That is a sudden topic change."
Maris did not answer right away. She straightened a little, fingers interlaced beneath her chin, eyes focused somewhere past the crowded tables. When she finally spoke, her tone had shifted. The playful edge from earlier was gone.
"I mean the rumors," she clarified. "Not the comic book versions. The ones people whisper about. Abilities that look supernatural but might have explanations we just do not understand yet."
Kieran snorted.
"That sounds exactly like the start of a conspiracy thread."
"Mock it all you want, but the city itself fuels those rumors."
Elias slowly stirred his stew.
"Dyspar fuels a lot of nonsense. That does not make it true."
Maris glanced at him.
"You say that, but you are the one who keeps pointing out things that do not add up."
Kieran leaned back in his chair.
"Hold on. Are we talking about Ms. Johnson again? Because if you are about to tell me she can bend spoons with her hips, I am out."
"That is not what I mean, you idiot!" Maris glared at him momentarily before regaining her composure. "Though you joke, she is actually a good example."
Elias raised an eyebrow. "Of what exactly."
"Of statistical improbability. Not just her body. Her record gaps. Her mobility. Her age. Her recovery speed when she moves. Have you ever seen her tired," replied Maris.
Kieran suddenly paused, looked a little surprised. "Now that you mention it. No. She always looks the same. Like she has infinite stamina."
However, Elias begged to differ.
"That alone is not proof of anything. Some people are just built differently."
"True. But science starts by questioning these patterns. One anomaly can be dismissed. Multiple overlapping ones deserve scrutiny." Maris tapped the side of her phone, though she did not unlock it.
"You both know what an Esper is supposed to be. Someone whose brain or nervous system expresses capabilities outside normal human parameters. Enhanced perception. Accelerated thought processing. Localized energy manipulation. Things like that."
"You forgot telekinesis and shooting fireballs."
"Those are dramatized interpretations. Realistically, if Espers existed, their abilities would be subtle. Not what you see in all those manga or anime."
"You are already assuming they exist."
"I am assuming they could exist. That is an important distinction."
Kieran squinted at her. "Oi. Since when did you start sounding like a research paper."
"Since the rumors stopped being inconsistent."
That interesting line of words caught Elias's attention.
"What do you mean by 'inconsistent.'"
Maris leaned forward slightly.
"Have you noticed how Esper rumors in Dyspar all follow similar rules."
"Rules," Kieran echoed. "Now they have rules."
"Yes. They are always localized. For example, like a student who always knows when danger is coming. A dockworker who can lift absurd weights but only in short bursts. A courier who never gets lost no matter the route."
"Urban legends evolve."
"They also contradict each other," Elias added after Kieran. "These do not."
Maris nodded in agreement.
"I suppose you're right about that. They are oddly consistent. And more importantly, they align with what limited neuroscience suggests could be theoretically possible."
Kieran blinked.
"Okay. You completely lost me now."
Maris sighed quietly.
"The human brain is not fully mapped. We know it suppresses certain outputs. Muscle limiters exist to prevent self injury. Perceptual filters decide what information reaches consciousness. If those limiters were altered, intentionally or otherwise, the results could look superhuman."
Elias frowned. "That still does not explain things like precognition."
"Pattern prediction. The brain is a prediction engine. Observing a certain set of attacks or data result in a form of adaptation. Some people are better at it. If someone had heightened subconscious processing, they could anticipate outcomes faster than conscious thought. To an observer, it looks like seeing the future."
Kieran rubbed his arms as though shivering from a scary cold. "Hey now. You are making this creepy."
"Reality often is."
"Don't say crap like that! You know how I feel about things like that!"
"Relax, will ya? She's just pulling your leg. She's also building a hypothesis on rumors which doesn't help in raising creditability whatsoever."
"You mean, rumors backed by repeatable observations. Take the South District incident last year."
Kieran's expression shifted. "The warehouse collapse."
"Yes. Officially, it was deemed as the good old structural failure. But five witnesses claimed a single man held the beam long enough for people to escape."
Elias scoffed. "Adrenaline does crazy things."
"Adrenaline does not let you support several tons of steel. Not without your bones shattering into mist. It only helps you to push past your normal output for a very short window," Maris continued smoothly, picking up where Elias had cut her off. "It does not rewrite physics."
She set her spoon down, clearly settling into explanation mode.
"Adrenaline, or epinephrine, primarily works by altering perception and removing safety limiters. It increases heart rate, dilates airways, redirects blood flow to skeletal muscles, and suppresses pain signals. That part everyone knows. What people forget is the tradeoff. It does not strengthen bones. It does not reinforce tendons. It does not magically increase the tensile strength of muscle fibers."
"But people lift cars sometimes," says Kieran.
"They lift corners of cars. And even then, the weight is distributed. Most of those cases involve leverage, brief bursts, and immediate injuries afterward like torn muscles, ruptured tendons and so forth. However, people do not walk away fine. In documented cases," Maris went on, "adrenaline lets someone exert maybe thirty to forty percent more force than their trained maximum. And only for a few seconds. That is because the brain normally limits muscle fiber recruitment to prevent catastrophic damage. Adrenaline removes part of that limiter."
She tapped the table lightly.
"But the cost is internal damage. Microtears. Hemorrhaging. Shock once the hormone clears."
Kieran swallowed. "So that warehouse guy."
"Would have collapsed. Or at the very least required immediate medical attention. But the reports say he just walked away from the scene"
Elias counted.
"Reports can be wrong and at times, mostly exaggerated."
"They can. But hospital intake records never lie, do they?" Marissa looked directly at Elias. "That is the key point. If adrenaline were responsible, there would be evidence afterward. It explains the attempt, not the success. There are rare documented mutations. Myostatin suppression, for example. People with it naturally develop far greater muscle mass and strength with minimal training. Their muscles do not receive the same inhibitory signals. And do you know the best part about it? They exist. You can research it later when you get back home. Actually, it is a very interesting topic. Honestly speaking, I think it is quite fascinating."
Kieran gave her a strange look.
"So what? Are you into huge guys or something?"
Elias raised an eyebrow. "Huge guys, huh?"
"S-Shut up! That is not what I meant!"
"Then what did you mean? Because I do not know. Explain it properly so I can understand."
"I was referring to muscular guys! Anyone could have understood that from the get go, you jerk!"
"Nah, you are just gay."
"I'm not gay!"
"Mm mmm."
"Stop giving me that damn look, you bastard! Do you want to smell like mustard and cheese for the rest of your life!?"
"Oh my, what a frightening thing to say. Really scary. But are you not being a bit defensive over an obvious, simple joke?"
"That is because you are saying I am gay when I rather obviously love women, especially those with killer bodies to die for, and you are giving me those damn eyes! Like I know what you are trying to do!!"
"Alright. Whatever you say."
Elias chuckled and, in the next moment, cleared his throat.
"Oh, right... where were we? Ahem... well, you build a very strony case but the lack of evidence is particularly damning. It's like saying you saw a unicorn somewhere without taking any pictures. No matter how good you explain it and try to prove its existence, no one is simply going to believe you without any proof."
Maris pouted.
"That's very mean. You know… people like you are why researchers have gray hairs and sleepless nights," she muttered, crossing her arms and leaning back slightly. "You dismiss possibilities just because they don't fit your neat little worldview. What about the patterns? The witnesses? The repeated anomalies? Does all of that counts for nothing, huh?"
Elias shrugged, stirring his stew absentmindedly.
"It counts, sure. But anecdotal evidence only gets you so far. Science needs reproducibility and verification you can actually check."
Kieran spoke. "Yeah, but… isn't noticing patterns also part of science? You look at trends, infer possibilities… I mean, come on. You can't just throw out every weird thing that happens."
Maris tilted her head, giving him a sharp look.
"Trends are one thing. But rumors are slippery. They twist, exaggerate, and fade with memory. The problem is separating coincidence from causation."
Elias finally looked at her, his lips twitching as if suppressing a smile.
"That's what I've been trying to say, exactly. Until someone runs controlled tests or gathers unbendable, solid data, all you have are stories. Fascinating ones, sure, but still stories."
Maris sighed in defeat. "You really are impossible. You'll never let imagination have its fun, will you?"
"Imagination is good and all but believing in reality is grounding. Otherwise, we start believing in things that can't exist."
"Why does every serious conversation in this school always turn into a debate about reality? Can't we just enjoy our lunch without existential dread?" Kieran groaned and started aggressively eating his food like there's no tomorrow.
Maris smirked despite herself.
"Only if you promise to stop calling me a 'huge guy fan.'"
Kieran almost choked. "...Seriously, you're still hung up on that?"
"Hung this time, huh?"
"Damn you, Elias! Don't you dare start again!"
"Start what exactly? You're the only one that seems bothered by the so-called 'huge guys.' Wow. I knew you were the jealous type but I didn't know you were insecure. Could it be that your little brother isn't up to standard? Oh dear, that isn't good. My childhood best can't be a cuck for the rest of his life. Say Maris, do you like big ones or small ones?"
"Haha! Why would I pick a small one? But hmm... I hear that big ones aren't always good. That it hurts a lot or something along those lines. If I'm being honest, I'll say it depends."
"You see that, Kieran? You still have a chance!"
"Fuck you! My manhood isn't small, thank you very much!!"
Elias tilted his head as though he didn't understand.
"Manhood? Who the hell was talking about that? Like? Where did that even come from? Wait, this entire time... were you thinking about that? Oh, man. It's worse than I thought. You're really, really, really, insecure, aren't you?"
Kieran stabbed his fork into the stew like it was a weapon. His head was lowered but his shoulders was trembling and he seemed to be gritting his teeth.
"...Would you look at this? Everything is all done. Well, might as well go for seconds. Give me a sec."
Before Kieran's steaming head could explode, Elias carried his tray and calmly headed back toward the serving line, leaving his friends behind as the cafeteria noise swallowed his retreat.