The Rise of Dark Flame

by Damien Benoit-Ledoux

  Get up, Quinn, get up!

  “Keep him down!” someone yelled.

  Another round of searing hot energy blasted through him and arced across his back, causing his elbows to buckle. He face-planted in the dead grass.

  “Blue Spekter, you will stand down immediately and surrender to the Department of Homeland Security,” a man’s distorted, nasally voice shouted over a megaphone.

  “No!” Blue Spekter shouted, fighting the pain and pushing himself up. So, that’s who’s behind this.

  One of the ice-bound thugs rolled toward Blue Spekter and yelled as he brought his ice-bound hands up and swung at Blue Spekter’s head, probably hoping to knock him out. The ice shattered on the back of Blue Spekter’s head, but it did not have the desired effect the man intended. Blue Spekter glared at the man with blazing blue eyes and the man backed away, surprised Blue Spekter had shrugged off the attack.

  “Hit him again!” an agent shouted.

  Think back to Rangeley…think back to the micro bug…to how desperate you were…how you stopped Dr. Madison…

  Blue Spekter cried out in pain as agents fired their TaseBolts at him a third time. The white energy sparked and snapped across Blue Spekter’s body and his arms gave out. He collapsed to the ground, his face mashed in the grass, as his muscles surrendered to the neutralizing blast of electricity.

  I can’t…surrender to them…remember what you did at Rangeley and…

  “Move in and take the vigilante into custody,” someone ordered.

  “No!” Blue Spekter grunted, struggling to push himself up from the ground. His eyes blazed with blue fury as he grimaced at the approaching agents. All of a sudden, the electrical energy coursing through his body changed. Instead of oppressing him, it yielded to his mind and he could harness it.

  I remember this feeling…

  Suddenly, a deafening sound and a powerful blue shockwave exploded away from Blue Spekter, knocking the agents to the ground. Tree branches swayed in the wake of the blast that stripped leaves and pine needles from the lower limbs of the oak and evergreen trees in the park. The onslaught of taser voltage stopped and Blue Spekter collapsed, his body and mind surrendering to exhaustion and darkness.

  ❖

  Quinn stirred into brief consciousness and felt a set of strong arms slide under his back and knees, gently lifting him from the cool ground.

  “It’s okay, Blue, I’ve got you. You’re safe,” a man’s soothing voice said.

  Then, he faded back into unconsciousness.

  ❖

  Ron

  Ron squatted and picked Blue Spekter up by sliding an arm under his back and his knees.

  Blue Spekter moaned.

  Ron hesitated for a moment, fearful he would react with a defensive super power. “It’s okay, Blue, I’ve got you. You’re safe,” he said in a soothing voice.

  Blue Spekter’s head flopped back and he was unconscious again.

  Using his legs, Ron pushed himself up from the ground and turned around. He took a few steps forward and stopped abruptly when he saw the silhouette of a woman with her hands on her hips standing ten feet in front of him. She seemed calm and the scene around him didn’t upset her.

  “Uh, can I help you?” he asked nervously.

  “No, Ron. I’m here to help you. You could say I’m…a friend of Blue Spekter.”

  Um, just how do you know my name? Ron studied the silhouetted figure. “What do you mean by, ‘a friend of Blue Spekter?’” he asked.

  The woman’s eyes glowed pink for a brief instant. “The kind of friend we both know about; the kind no one else should know about.”

  Holy shit, there are more of you?

  “We need to get inside. It’s not safe to speak out here.” She gestured to the fallen agents around them. “It won’t be long before they regain consciousness.”

  Ron shifted his stance as Quinn’s weight started to tax his arms and back. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  Her hands dropped to her sides and she stepped forward and shrugged. “If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “You have a point. Follow me.” Ron walked across the park with the strange woman following him and led her to his home across the street. Since you know my name, you probably know where I live. How the heck am I going to explain this to my wife?

  Quinn moaned again.

  “I’ve got you, Quinn, don’t worry. You’re safe now,” Ron responded.

  ❖

  Quinn

  Quinn felt the darkness around his mind lift briefly and he perceived his body was suspended in a set of human arms, footsteps vibrating through his body as the person walked.

  The DHS…

  He moaned, but couldn’t move.

  The same voice from before consoled him and the man gently squeezed where his hands and arms supported him. “I’ve got you, Quinn, don’t worry. You’re safe now.”

  They know my name…

  Quinn faded back into unconsciousness.

  ❖

  Ron

  “And you are?” Stephanie asked, her voice dripping with displeasure.

  Ron smirked.

  The woman smiled pleasantly and extended a hand to his wife. “My name is Ana Maria Garcia. I’m here to help our young friend.”

  Stephanie folded her arms and blocked the door. “I’m sorry, I’m not accustomed to my husband bringing strange women into our home,” she said, glaring at Ron.

  “We just met,” he replied. “Shove over, he’s getting heavy.”

  Ana Maria’s eyes briefly glowed pink. “I hope you’ll make an exception for this strange woman.”

  Stephanie’s eyes popped open with surprise and she stepped back. “Oh, wow, okay. There’s another one. You didn’t tell me there was more of them, Ron,” she said excitedly.

  “I didn’t know,” Ron said, pushing his way into the house with Quinn in his arms.

  “He really didn’t know,” Ana Maria echoed, following Ron through the doorway. “I’d love to explain everything to both of you, though. That will clear things up.”

  Stephanie nodded as she shut the front door behind them.

  Ron made his way through the house and gently set Quinn down on the living room couch.

  ❖

  Quinn

  Quinn heard voices talking; a man and a woman were discussing something. Darkness descended once more.

  ❖

  Quinn opened his eyes and blinked. He did not recognize the ceiling or the painted walls he saw. He tilted his head to the right and saw a woman sitting in an armchair, sleepily reading a paperback book. He looked down and saw he was laying on a blue couch in someone’s living room. A pillow had been tucked under his head.

  He cleared his throat and the woman lowered the book.

  “Who are you? Where am I?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. “I’m Stephanie St. Germain and I’m married to your science teacher. You’re safe in our living room. Ron saved you.” She turned her head toward a doorway and spoke loudly. “Ron, honey? He’s awake.”

  Quinn brought his hands to his head and rubbed his temples, desperate to soothe the pounding headache he had. A moment later, the smiling face of Ron walked around the corner and into the room. “Hey, buddy how are you feeling?” A woman he didn’t recognize followed him into the living room and his face expressed alarm.

  What the hell?”

  Ron pointed at her and introduced them. “Quinn, this is Ana Maria Garcia.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Quinn,” Ana Maria said, smiling.

  Great, now more people know my secret identity. What the hell are you doing, Ron?

  “Do you work for Victor? For The Order?” Quinn asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Ana Maria replied.

  Well, that’s good. But you seem to know who they are…but first…

  “How did you find me?” he asked as he tried to sit up, but his head throbbed. “Ouch, my head hurts.”

&
nbsp; Ron nodded. “I bet it does, that was a lot of electricity to take. Want some Tylenol?”

  Quinn nodded, “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Stephanie leaned forward. “Before this conversation gets serious, I have to ask…how do you do the glowing eyes thing?”

  Quinn chuckled. “It just happens. I learned to control it with Ron, uh, your husband’s help, but it’s part of the super power deal, I guess.” He made his eyes glow briefly.

  “That’s amazing,” Stephanie responded. “You can do so much good, but at the same time, I can see why you scare people.”

  Ana Maria didn’t take her eyes off him as she sat in a chair.

  Quinn looked at the two women. “So, I guess you both know who I am now.”

  They smiled at him and Stephanie spoke again. “I admit, I didn’t understand what Ron was talking about when he was pointing at the commotion in the park earlier, but he sat me down and told me the story.”

  “Earlier? How long have I been here?”

  Stephanie looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s one o’clock in the morning. Ron brought you in around eleven o’clock.”

  Quinn sighed. Crap, my dads are gonna kill me. Except, they’re not…they’re up in Portland for one of Dad’s benefit galas or something.

  “Do you know who attacked you?” Ana Maria asked.

  “No, do you?”

  “We think it was the Department of Homeland Security,” Ron answered, re-entering the room with a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol. “I heard some commotion outside and checked it out. When I saw the hidden floodlights pop on, I became concerned. When I saw you fall to one knee I realized you were in trouble.” He handed the glass of water and the bottle to Quinn.

  “What? How? Where do you live? How did you see me?”

  Ron chuckled. “It’s a good thing we live right across from the park. Otherwise, you might be their prisoner right now.”

  “What happened?” Quinn set the glass of water down on the coffee table and opened the bottle of Tylenol, shaking two pills into his hand.

  “Before or after the explosion?” Stephanie asked.

  “After.” Quinn swallowed the pills and chased them down with water.

  Ron sat down and answered his question. “You basically exploded with blue energy at the last second and knocked everyone out, including yourself. I waited a few minutes, but when no one got up, I put on a hoodie and went out to see what was going on with you. I checked a couple of the agents and they were alive, but unconscious. I picked you up and brought you back here.”

  “I remember someone picking me up. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. It took the rest of them about thirty minutes to get up, but they cleared out. I’m guessing they think you ran off or flew away.”

  “So, they don’t know their tasers hurt me?”

  Ron shook his head. “Not permanently, at least. I’d venture they know they can stun you. However, those weren’t regular tasers. They were pretty cool looking, futuristic, and high-tech energy weapons. I wanted to take one, but I figured it had a tracking device on it.”

  Quinn nodded. “Yeah, one of the agents called it a TaseBolt. Those cool looking things hurt like a motherfucker.” He looked at Stephanie. “Sorry.”

  She smiled. “I think you deserve a free pass for that one.”

  He smiled back at her and chugged the rest of the water. “I don’t understand why the tasers stunned me. They didn’t stun me up in Rangeley, so why tonight? I faked it up there just to figure out what was going on.”

  Ron stroked his beard. “I have a thought about that. Were you caught off-guard or surprised tonight?”

  Quinn nodded. “Yeah, completely caught off-guard. I thought I was rescuing a woman from thugs, but they were all actors. The whole thing was a setup.”

  Ron nodded. “An elaborate one, at that. They were counting on you to be focused on the crisis they engineered. It allowed them to hide in parked cars and catch you by surprise. That leads me to believe you can be caught off guard, which explains why the tasers stunned you, but they only seemed to affect your muscles. From my perspective, your mind and your ability to use your super powers appeared diminished, but I’m guessing you still had control because I saw you trying to get up from the ground. No mere human can do that when they’re being tased.”

  Quinn nodded. And, I felt the energy shift…maybe tasers won’t hurt me anymore.

  “However, if you hadn’t done that explosive force thing you did, they might have you in custody right now—and they would have known electricity can subdue you.”

  “I guess.”

  “You don’t sound convinced,” Ron said through a yawn.

  Quinn shook his head and explained how, when Mother Superior had him chained up at Orgonon, he felt the electricity running through his body and was able to manipulate it. He told them how he felt the energy shift in him tonight, and then he explained how Blake was more adversely affected by electricity than he was.

  Ron nodded and responded. “I’m willing to bet it was a matter of voltage. Chances are, they were zapping you with the voltage level they thought would subdue you based on how electricity affects Blake.”

  “That makes sense. Wait, I’m sorry.” Quinn looked over at Ana Maria, concerned. “Who are you again? Why are you here, and when did you come into the picture? What’s your story?” he asked. You’ve taken all this in without saying a word or showing astonishment…you should be in shock over this story…like Chief Applegate and David were.

  Ana Maria forced a smile. “I’ve been watching you and Blake for some time now.”

  “Aw, shit, you do work for Victor!” he exclaimed, fighting the pain in his head. He sat up quickly, but he groaned and fell back because everything in his body hurt. Why isn’t my body healing?

  Ana Maria raised a hand, gesturing for him to stop. “You’ve taken a serious electrical charge. Your healing factor and metabolic rates are stunned but will come back shortly. That’s why you aren’t healing at the moment. This is a place you cannot ever let them put you in again.”

  “Right,” Quinn said, laying back down.

  Wait…my healing factor and metabolic rates?

  He pushed through the pain and sat upright with alarm. “How do you know about that?”

  One second, Quinn was looking at Ana Maria with a high degree of skepticism. The next, he sensed her in his mind, like he did Blake.

  “Oh my gawd!” Quinn shouted as he winced, his brain overwhelmed with new information about Ana Maria’s whereabouts despite her immediate proximity to him. Ron and Stephanie looked at each other with confusion and fear.

  He stared at her with shock and jumped back on the couch, ignoring the pain he felt. “Holy shit! You’re like me! But, that’s impossible. Are you the only one? Are there more? Why couldn’t I sense you until right now?” Quinn asked.

  Ana Maria regarded him with curiosity and tilted her head to the right a bit. “Sense me?”

  “Yeah, Blake and I can sense each other when we’re close, like within a certain distance. I know exactly where he is and he knows where I am. It was cool at first, but it got annoying fast.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Good. I will teach you how to prevent Blake from sensing you. But if you wish to retain the upper hand, you must always let him sense you until the right moment.”

  “How will I know when it’s the right moment?”

  Ana Maria smiled. “It will be the day you get your friend back.”

  Quinn relaxed a little and rubbed his eyes, then looked at Ana Maria. “You need to tell us everything!”

  She nodded. “I was the first and only successfully orgone-transformed being of the mid-1960s, during the time of the secretly conducted human trials by The Order. The program was initiated as an early Cold War Era response to the Arms Race and the American-Russian nuclear threat.”

  Quinn raised his hand. “How old are you?”

  Ana Maria smile
d. “How old do I look?”

  Stephanie laughed and Ron shook his head, feigning panic at the question.

  Quinn noticed Ron’s demonstration and shrugged nervously. “Um…twenty-five or thirty?”

  Ana Maria rolled her eyes and laughed. “I was born in 1945. I underwent the procedure in 1965, when I was twenty.”

  “So, you’re like, in your seventies?” Quinn asked, staring at her beautiful, wrinkle-free face.

  She nodded. “Something like that.”

  “But you don’t look a day over thirty,” Stephanie said, astonished.

  “Thank you,” Ana Maria said, smiling and accepting the compliment. “The orgone continuously rejuvenates my cells which means we age slowly. This is already happening to Quinn and Blake.”

  Quinn looked at his hands, turning them around as he stared at them. “Wow, okay. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “The original experiment was code-named Project Genesis. I was selected for experimentation because my IQ was…is…very high and all the male subjects kept dying. Unfortunately for me, the experimental procedure appeared to have killed me and I was left for dead and documented as a failed process or experiment.”

  “Wow,” Ron said.

  “Later, unknown to anyone, I reanimated in the hospital morgue. I have no scientific explanation as to why except the theory that somehow the orgone energy in my cells promoted healing, the first of my powers.”

  “That must have been freaky, waking up in a morgue?”

  “It wasn’t pleasant, that’s for sure. It was a cold, giant freezer with other metal slabs. I wasn’t the only dead body around.”

  Stephanie made a dry-heaving sound and waved her hand. “Nope, don’t need to imagine it.”

  They chuckled, and Ana Maria continued. “When my body went missing, the lack of official paperwork documenting the illegal experimentation prevented a thorough investigation and the human trials ended shortly thereafter. Needless to say, they never bothered to go looking for me or cared to find out what happened.”