“Thank you. Now, I want a rundown of everything that happened while you were gone. Leave something out, and I’ll hit you for real.” She flashed a grin that made me laugh. If Marcel could be my brother, then Abby was my sister. One day I’d stop hurting the people around me.
She settled back as I ran through the whole story. I started with the first meeting with Eiraf and went straight through until Alyx dropped us off at Castle. She asked to see the bottle, which I retrieved and showed her. “It’s only for life or death emergencies, but Makeda said it would bring her.” I put the bottle away, careful to not break it. It appeared solid but I wasn’t taking any chances.
I hopped back into bed. “What happened here today?” It felt good to let someone else do the talking.
“Nothing much.” She thought for a second. “Blaze almost passed out after a quick sparring session. I still think he needs a doctor. Mom made chicken piccata for dinner. There were leftovers.”
“I know, Mom heated a couple up when I got back.” Even though I’d eaten while I spoke with Mom, I was starved. Healing required a lot of energy. My stomach grumbled loudly. Time to remedy that. “Snack time.”
Abby didn’t need to be told twice. She ate more than any of us, but you couldn’t tell. Olympic athletes would kill to be built like her. We climbed the stairs up to the kitchen. I grabbed the leftover chicken after giving her crap about lying to me. She fetched the plates, and we set to preparing our late-night dinner. The kitchen table could hold twelve people, so we sat at the corner closest to the island where the steaming hot food sat. Mom’s cooking was legendary, and we enjoyed another round of dinner. “Man, this is the best.”
Abby burped. “You know if you have to hide out, having a master chef and fresh vegetables makes it a lot easier.” She got up and put the plates and glasses in the dishwasher. “Don’t get used to it; I figured you had a very long day.”
In response, I yawned and stretched out my arms. I really did need some sleep. The food coma setting in would help. “I guess I’m going to crash.”
She leaned back across from me. “Um, have you talked to Marcel?” I shook my head, stifling another yawn. “I think he’s upset about something, but he won’t tell any of us. Mom tried to talk to him while Ranger was gone to get you, but he kept saying things were fine.”
That didn’t sound right. Marcel always had some issue to worry about. Either it was his newest phone not having the correct OS version, or he couldn’t train because it might hurt his hands. “Things are fine?”
“I know, right? He’s worse than an old man yelling at kids on his lawn. Maybe you should talk to him. He’s been holed up in the control room since yesterday. He says he’s fine.” She gritted her teeth on the last word and then gave me the ‘you should really go talk to him’ look.
I sighed. It wouldn’t take long, then I could get some sleep. I stood, pushing in my chair. “You coming?”
She slid her chair in, and we descended the stairs, through the connector and down to computer central. I knocked on the door. “All hail the computer king!” He didn’t answer. I keyed the door and walked in. Marcel sat with his back to the door, his head cradled in his hands as he cried. His giant ‘fro flopped over like an avalanche of hair. “Mr. Wizard, what’s going on?”
Marcel’s head rose slowly. He turned the chair so he faced us. Huge bags hung under his red-rimmed eyes, making him appear a lot older. I’d seen him after all night coding sessions, but he’d never been this ragged before. Tears still rolled down his cheeks. “Hey Tommy, glad you’re back.”
My jaw dropped open. Marcel hadn’t called me Tommy since third grade. I exchanged a shocked look with Abby, whose eyes had grown three sizes bigger. “Um, Marcel, what’s going on, man?”
He sunk into the chair further. “Things are fine.”
I walked over and grabbed two office chairs, rolling one over to Abby. She swung it around, taking a seat. I did the same. “What’s really going on? I’ve known you my whole life, and there is something wrong.”
“I’m fi…” He mashed the tears away before casting his eyes around as if to escape. “Never mind. It's...it’s happened, going to come out, all of it. Just watch.” He spun back to the control panel, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the keyboard. The monitor above flickered to life. Grainy camera footage loaded as we watched. It must be a surveillance camera. From the time stamp, it had happened about ten minutes ago.
“Granite Falls?” Abby asked as she squinted at the screen. Making out the details was tough with how grainy it was.
“Yes, it is.” Marcel pushed away from the keyboard. His eyes had a haunted look to them I’d never seen before. This must be really bad.
From the right side of the screen, a large man stumbled along. He swayed dangerously as he went, tripping over his own feet. “He’s drunk. Why is that a problem?” I asked, totally confused.
“Just watch.”
I resumed staring at the screen as the man bumbled along. From the far side of the screen three Reclaimers came into view; one had his shock stick out. They pushed each other as they stood in plain sight of the drunk. He didn’t notice.
Abby sat up straight. “Is he Gifted? He has a collar on.”
Marcel nodded mutely.
Now that she mentioned it, I could see the edge of his collar just above his leather jacket. Oh, man. Being caught drunk by bored Reclaimers would be bad. They wouldn’t kill him, but he’d be in the hospital for sure. The other two soldiers produced their batons and circled him. The guy’s head jerked up as he heard the Reclaimer in front of him. They were all laughing at him, shocking him in turn. He spun like a trapped grizzly bear, arms flailing at the air, trying in vain to stop the pain. One of the soldiers stepped aside and delivered a blow across the back of his knees. He went down hard. They converged on him, striking over and over as the man curled into a ball. I’d been worked over enough times by Brunner to know how it felt, how helpless you were.
The screen flashed white, startling Abby and me. “What the hell was that?” I asked, jumping up from my chair. Abby’s exclamation was a lot more colorful. The image slowly returned. All three soldiers were charred beyond belief as was the drunk they’d been beating.
“How could that have happened?” Abby paced back and forth, nervous energy pouring off her in waves. When Marcel didn’t answer, she grabbed him. He flinched away, but she held fast. “How did it happen, and why is it our problem, Marcel?” She came close to snarling in his face, she was so upset.
Marcel chocked back a sob. “I turned off their collars to prove it would be better. I didn’t know this would happen.”
The Reclaimers would kill or lock away all the Gifted.
Welcome to the Reclamation War 2.0.
21
I rubbed my eyes to clear my head before I spoke. “Abby, can you get everyone down here?”
“Tommy, it’s 2 a.m. Can’t it wait until morning?”
I thought about it for a second. I wasn’t sure if we could do anything, but we had the chance now, and it might disappear by morning. “No, I don’t think so.”
She didn’t look happy, but she ran out of the room to do it. I turned back to Marcel. “This is only ten minutes ago. Did anyone else see this footage?”
Tears welled up in his eyes as he bowed his head. “I’m sorry. I thought turning off a couple of collars would prove we could free a few at a time and that the Reclaimers wouldn’t notice. Then they disappeared, and I couldn’t find them. Now this.”
“I don’t care about that crap now. Did anyone else see the footage?” Marcel jerked back as if I’d slapped him across the face. He’d screwed up, but we might have time to minimize the damages.
“I intercepted the feed and sent a virus to destroy the hard drive. They only use the camera feeds as evidence if they need it.” His tone dripped with misery. “I should have listened, but I couldn’t leave all the rest behind when they could be free.”
I sighed, wishing Mom and Dad
would get here. I should have known he would do something like this. Marcel hadn’t stopped talking about freeing the kids in Redemption. At least he hadn’t done that or shut down the Block. The headache I thought was gone returned full force. I just wanted to go to bed and sleep.
The door opened and a disheveled set of parents entered, Abby in tow. “What is going on, you two?” Mom asked, her face etched with concern and lack of sleep.
I swallowed hard, not wanting to talk about it, but wishing hadn’t brought Wendi back or accomplished anything else for that matter. “We have a situation we need to discuss.” I checked with Abby. “Is Blaze coming?”
Before she could answer, Blaze entered. “Dude, chill.” He walked in carrying a pot of coffee and three mugs. His hair had been pulled into a ponytail, but loose pieces stuck out in all directions like a haystack after the kids had finished jumping in it. “Nobody’s gonna function without some coffee to get us going.” His voice carried a rasp to it that hadn’t been there before. For the first time, he looked old to me. Blaze handed out coffee to Mom and Dad before drinking his. “What’s so all-fired important you’ve got to drag us out of bed? If it’s a new gizmo Marcel wants, you’ll regret it at training.”
“I wish.” I gestured to the screen. “Go ahead and run the video. Marcel got this off the Granite Falls camera feed.” Nobody said anything, but their worried expressions changed to ones of horror as they realized the implication of a collared Gifted exploding and killing three Reclaimers in the process.
“Good call, Tommy,” Dad said, setting his coffee cup down on the junk table he stood by. “Do we know how this could happen?”
I caught Mom’s eye and glanced at Marcel, who sat staring at his shoes. She got my meaning right away. She lightly touched Dad’s arm, letting him know. He nodded slowly.
“Doesn’t matter, what is important is what do we do now?” Mom’s voice held a note of sympathy that penetrated Marcel’s fog.
He got up and faced everyone. “It was me. I found a way to turn off the collar without releasing it.”
Dad put his hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for telling us. How many people did you release?”
“I used the network at the Secret Lair to broadcast the signal through the sound system.” Marcel sniffled, wiping his nose on his sweatshirt sleeve. “I did it right before closing, so there wouldn’t be many who were affected.”
Blaze whistled. “Dude, you are amazing. I’d never thought anyone could bypass the built-in security at the Lair.” He poured himself a second cup and walked over to fill Dad’s cup as well.
Dad thanked him, retrieving his steaming mug. “Blaze, how many people would be there at close?”
“Maybe three or four at the most. Max isn’t Gifted, so he wouldn’t be affected.”
Marcel blurted out. “I thought I could prove it wouldn’t cause any harm but let them get away from the Protectorate. I’m sorry.”
Mom gathered him up in a hug as he started to cry. She moved him across the room, her voice quiet and reassuring. I knew he meant well, but this had gone sideways fast. I worried about Mimi. Was she working? Did her Gift manifest like the guy in the feed? I’m sure I wouldn’t know, but I realized I was scared for her.
“The guy had his collar on, so is that our main concern?” Abby asked from her perch on the windowsill overlooking the maintenance area. “If the Reclaimers find out about it, they’ll freak.”
“I agree with Abby.” Dad took another swallow of coffee. “We have to get the collar. Any ideas?”
Blaze grinned. “Max is right there. The time stamp is only twenty minutes ago, and they were in a parking lot near the Lair. He can get over there and at least pull the collar. I’ll go call him.” He tottered out of the room. I’d seen him jump over a person to break a board on the far side. Maybe he pulled a muscle during training.
Dad lowered his voice. “This is bad; we’re lucky he didn’t burst into flames in the middle of a school or someplace with an audience. Can we trust Marcel?”
I gaped in shock, how could we not trust him. He got us out of the Megadrome. He found Castle when we had to burn Dresden and Oberon.
“I can see from the look on your face that’s a yes.”
“We can trust him, but we should talk it over with him.” Dad agreed, so I called him and Mom over. Abby hadn’t moved, though if she grabbed a bucket of popcorn to watch the show, it wouldn’t have surprised me much. Mom pulled up a chair next to Marcel, still holding his hand.
Mom pushed a chair to Dad. “Take a seat, Ranger. You are a bit intimidating standing over everyone.”
He gave her a wry smile and sat. “Marcel, we talked about this. Can I ask why you decided to release the Gifted at the Lair?” He started to say something else, but stopped, waiting for Marcel to answer.
Marcel’s size made it easy to forget he hadn’t reached his eighteenth birthday yet. People expected him to be mature and make the right decisions, but just like me, he screwed up unintentionally. We didn’t know much about our Gifts, having grown up in Redemption.
He sniffled. “I know, but I thought with how gradual Gifts developed, they would realize it and be able to get away from Granite Falls since they aren’t watched like the school kids.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know something like this could happen.”
“None of us did, Marcel,” Abby commented from the ledge. The three of us were closer than anything. We had to stick together through the bad stuff. “Tommy screws up a million times more than you do.”
“But his screw-ups didn’t get people killed.” Marcel returned to staring at his feet.
I don’t know if no sleep, the stress of the day, seeing Femi in the energy cell or what, but something broke in my head. “Seriously? Wendi. Freaking. Died.” I bit off each word as I spewed them at my best friend. “I screwed up, and she died. I screwed up, and Ryder and Clint died. The botched rescue attempt cost all those kids. I’ve killed more people than the Reaper. We need to fix what we can, not sit here and wallow in pity.”
Mom stood before me, shaking with anger, face beet red. “Thomas George Ward, I am ashamed of you. If anyone is wallowing, it’s you. We all lost Wendi; we all made poor decisions that hurt others. You will apologize to Marcel right this instant, and I will never hear that kind of garbage come out of your mouth again.”
Mom had never spoken to me like that before. My face flushed as I realize how badly I’d screwed up. She stared daggers at me as she waited.
“Mom, Tommy is right.” Marcel leapt to his feet. “He said what I needed to hear. We must fix this before anyone else gets hurt. Sometimes it takes your bruh to set you straight.”
My eyes flicked back and forth between Mom and Marcel. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Will you forgive me?”
“Bruh, we’re all good.” He punched me in the arm. “I need to fix this if I can.” He pulled his chair back to the control panel, fingers flying across the keyboard. The screen lit up as new information flashed across it. “I used the Lair’s security system to deactivate the collars. For some reason, they aren’t responding to any of the commands like they should.”
Mom stepped up to stand next to me.
“I’m sorry; I don’t know what happened.” I kept my voice low so she could hear me, but no one else. Dad and Abby had flanked Marcel, going over the information he accessed from the Granite Falls systems.
She rubbed my arm. “You’re growing up is what’s happening. You needed to see the same thing Marcel did.” I put my arm around her and squeezed.
Blaze’s coughing fit echoed down the hall before I saw him. He entered the room, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, and I thought I saw blood on it. He pushed the cloth into his back pocket, returning the phone to his ear. “Yeah, I’ll ask.” He joined the group at the console. “Max wants to know if you have the camera shutdown?”
“I loaded a loop from last night, so they won’t notice it was replaced. It took a b
it to fake out the timestamp on the recording. Max is good to go. The camera feed is here.” He swung his arm up and dramatically hit the enter key. The footage filled the screen, showing the three lumps of burnt men around a middle lump that had been the Gifted.
Blaze gave the go ahead. “We got lucky; the parking lot is off the beaten track; I’m surprised there were Reclaimers in the area.”
A shiver cascaded down my spine. Why had Reclaimers been there that late at night? Headlights illuminated the parking lot. I tensed until I saw Max climb out of his beater and head to where the bodies were. He reared back a bit, held his nose, and plunged into the ash pile. After a minute or so, he pulled something from the center pile and shoved it into his pocket as he kicked down the ash piles. He ran back to his car, started the engine, and left the scene.
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until I let it out. The stress flowed out of me. There would be a lot of questions, but without the telltale collar, they wouldn’t know the pile of ash had been Gifted. From the look on Marcel’s face, he felt the same. We had dodged a bullet, but who else had been affected? Given the range of powers Gifted developed, they could have them and never know it.
“Well, this was exciting. Dudes, could we do this during the nine to five?” Blaze resumed sipping at his coffee cup as if nothing had happened. The man could give statues lessons in patience.
“I think I know what went wrong,” Dad said, grabbing his cup off the table. He pushed his finger into the mug, and wisps of steam curled away from the top.
Everyone stared at him.
“What? I like my coffee hot.” He blew on it before he took a sip. “Most people’s Gifts come on slowly over years unless faced with a traumatic situation.”
My conversation with Makeda came to mind. She had said mages had a similar experience. I wondered how many Gifted in Redemption would have never fully developed their powers? A lot of those people would have never been a threat to anyone.
“The Gifted we saw had his powers come on too rapidly. It was like thirty years of growth happened in a compressed time frame and overloaded him. I’d seen spontaneous genesis before, but they were kids, so they weren’t at full power. The poor guy imploded.”
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