Free Zom-B Angels by Darren Shan

one’s interested.’
    ‘Maybe I’ll surprise you,’ I grunt.
    ‘No,’ he says. ‘You won’t.’
    Carl takes me by the swimming pool on our way. A couple of Angels are doing laps, moving faster than any Olympic swimmer, like a pair of sharks following a trail of blood.
    ‘Can you swim?’ Carl asks.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘You’re free to train here whenever you want,’ he says. ‘But make sure you plug up your nostrils and ears — water will lodge if you don’t. And keep your mouth
firmly shut. Liquids slip down our throats easily enough, but they’re a real pain to get rid of. Trust me, unless you like wearing nappies, you don’t want to go sloshing around with a
few litres of water inside you.’
    ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
    The gym is fairly standard, cross-trainers, rowing machines, weights and so on. Several Angels are working out, some under the gaze of Master Zhang, others by themselves.
    Master Zhang ignores me for a few minutes, studying a girl as she performs a series of gymnastic routines in front of a dummy that must have been brought here from a shop. Each spin or twirl
ends with a flick of a hand or foot to the dummy’s head or torso. She’s already chipped away at a lot of it, and keeps on tearing in, cracking it, knocking chunks loose, ignoring the
cuts and nicks she’s picking up.
    ‘Keep going until there is nothing left to destroy,’ Master Zhang says to the girl, then strides for the door, nodding at Carl and me to follow.
    He leads us to a bare room that looks like it was once a conference room for high-flying businessmen. Any chairs and tables have been removed, though there are still some whiteboards on the
walls.
    ‘Each revitalised is different,’ Master Zhang says, wasting no time on chit-chat. ‘Our bodies react uniquely when we return to life. There are similarities common to all
– extra strength and speed – but nobody can judge the extent of their abilities until they test themself. Physical build is not a factor. Some of us have great potential. Others do
not.
    ‘We can fine-tune whatever skills we possess, but if you are found lacking at this stage, you will forever be limited by the restraints of your body. When you died, you lost the capacity
to improve on what nature provided you with. In short, your response to today’s test will decide your role within the Angels for the next few thousand years. So I suggest you apply yourself
as best you can.’
    Master Zhang marches me to one end of the room, then tells me to make a standing jump. I crouch, tense the muscles in my legs, then spring forward like a frog. I hurtle almost two-thirds of the
way across the room, far further than any human could have ever jumped. I’m delighted with myself, but when I look at Master Zhang, he makes a so-so gesture.
    ‘Carl,’ he says and Carl copies what I did, only he sails past me and bounces off the wall ahead of us.
    ‘Does that mean I’ve failed?’ I ask bitterly.
    ‘No,’ Master Zhang said. ‘It simply means that if someone is required to leap across a great distance – for instance, from the roof of one building to another – we
will choose Carl or another like him.’
    Next we step out into the corridor and I perform a running jump. I do better this time, although still nowhere near what Carl can do. Then Master Zhang times me racing up and down. He’s
pleased with my speed. ‘Not the fastest by any means, but quicker than many.’
    We step back into the room and Master Zhang tests my sense of balance by having me stand in a variety of uncomfortable positions and hold the pose as long as I can. Then he tests my reflexes by
lobbing small, hard balls at me. Again he’s happy with my response, but far from overwhelmed.
    We return to the gym and he tries me out with weights. I come up short on this one. Others are lifting weights around me and I can see that I don’t match up. I lift far more than I could
have when I was alive, but ultimately I fall