I look down at my phone. My finger hovers over Mae’s number.
Mom’s right. There’s no harm in asking. The worst that Mae can say is no. And it’s just a dance, after all.
I lean towards Mom, squeezing her in a one-armed hug.
“Thanks for the encouragement, Mom,” I say.
She plants a kiss on the top of my head then gets up from the bed and walks to the doorway.
“I’ve got to get going if I don’t want to make this man wait forever for me,” she says, going to step out the door.
“Will I get to meet this man?” I call after her with a slight smile.
She doesn’t stop, but gives me a laugh over her shoulder.
“Maybe,” she teases. “If it goes well. Let me know what Mae says.”
I chuckle back.
“Maybe,” I echo to her. “Only if it goes well.”
This time Mom slows and makes a face at me.
“Cheeky boy. I’ll be back in a bit. Love you.”
Then she’s off to the staircase.
I wait until I hear the front door close, then click on Mae’s number on my phone. A blank text message pops up, waiting for my input.
“You can do this…” I say under my breath, then tap in a quick message that I hope is not too suspicious.
ME: Can I meet up with you to talk about something?
The little whoop sound chimes as I send the message off to the satellites in the sky.
Then the waiting game begins.
I expect there to be at least a few minutes gap before I hear a reply, but to my surprise my phone dings not even ten seconds later with a response from Mae.
My stomach leaps into my throat as I read her answer.
MAE: Meet me at the football field.
“I guess it’s showtime,” I say.
Grabbing a jacket and sliding my armband onto my right arm with the Vestige safely tucked inside, I head out the door and take off for the high school.
14
The Second Attempt
Normally I would enjoy a good flight in the evening, but tonight I am nervous. The thought of asking Mae to the Winter Ball is enough to make my stomach uneasy and my hands tremble a bit as I swerve to avoid a patch of misty cloud.
What will I say to her? How will I bring it up?
Obviously Mae must have some idea what I’m up to. She would have asked me to just meet her at her family’s house if she thought that I just wanted to hang out like normal and casually bring up the topic. Instead, Mae wants us to meet up at the football field at the high school, so she must know what I’m up to if she thinks that we will need our privacy - and I’m thankful for that. I don’t want anyone to see me asking her what I’m about to ask because if she says no, I will be gutted and have to turn tail and run.
Within a few minutes I spot the playing field nestled between two sets of bleachers. The green turf is illuminated by the security lights towering over the place, and my shadow stretches a long distance as I land on the rubber track that circles the field.
I look around, taking in the place as I search for Mae. At first I don’t think that she’s arrived yet, but then I see someone with an unmistakable streak of pink in her hair stepping out from behind the right set of bleachers.
What do I do now? I don’t want to look too awkward, so I force a smile and hope that my face isn’t too red as I walk towards where Mae is standing.
“Hey,” I say.
To my surprise, Mae doesn’t say anything. She stands in the middle of the track, motionless and completely silent. As I get closer I see that her expression is stone serious.
I come to a stop.
“Mae?” I say, standing back near the edge of the track. “What’s wrong?”
Mae still doesn’t speak. She comes towards me, her eyes suddenly igniting in a glowing white light.
Okay, something is definitely wrong, I think.
A tingling sensation crawls up my arms, prickling my skin. I am suddenly very aware of the Vestige against my arm, tucked inside the fabric band concealed beneath my jacket. I’m thankful that I have it. I just hope I don’t have to use it against Mae. She’s clearly not herself, but I can’t tell if I should run away or stay and figure out what’s wrong with her.
Mae advances slowly towards me, closing the gap. Her feet make an uncharacteristic clinking sound with each step and my eyes are drawn to her shoes - the pair that she showed me the other day, complete with spikes on the bottom that intensify the fear pumping through my veins.
I unsuccessfully try to swallow the lump in my throat and take a step back.
“Mae, what’s going on with you?”
Suddenly Mae stops. Her head snaps to the right, as if she’s capturing some sort of radio signal that only she can hear. Then she blinks, her eyes return to normal, and in an instant she leaps into the air and comes flying at me.
15
Hypnotized
There is no time to think or even analyze what is happening. All I can manage to yell out is, “Mae!” before she closes the gap between us and lashes out with one of her spiked shoes.
A scream emerges from her lungs, the likes of which I have never heard. It’s as if she’s possessed by something or someone - and in the back of my mind I believe that that is what’s happening. But, there’s no time to do anything because I’m dodging her spiked cleats, twisting my body so that my stomach is now concave.
Despite this, her shoe tears open my shirt and scrapes the skin on my stomach. I let out a cry as she goes flying past me.
“Mae, what are you doing?!”
I launch myself into the air, zooming up ten, twenty, thirty feet into the open space above the field so that I can get a good vantage point. The lights are now even with me and their light illuminates everything so that it’s easy to see where Mae is.
She comes to a stop and looks around, her head snapping from side to side as she searches for me. When I’m not anywhere at ground level she looks up and spots me within seconds.
Her mouth twists into a snarl. I can see the mist seeping from between her teeth.
I’m trying to snap her out of it just by speaking, but it seems that nothing I say really registers with her. She’s in some sort of trance - which leads me to believe that Austin Spencer is behind this. How did he get to her? I have no idea. What I do know is that when Mae launches her own self into the air, matching my height, I have no other choice but to hold out my hands in a defensive position.
“Mae, please!” I call out over the sound of the frigid November wind. It tugs at our clothes and makes my entire body shiver. Mae seems not even to notice it.
So much for asking her out to the Winter Ball, I think. Instead I’m fighting for my life, or at least the security of my own flesh.
Another snarl emerges from between Mae’s teeth, then she gnashes them and comes flying at me head-first this time, hands outstretched with fingers ready to rake across my face.
As much as I don’t want to, it seems that the only option to defend myself is to shoot a few pulse blasts at Mae. I don’t want to knock her out of the sky unconscious because if I do there’s no telling how she might land. Her injuries could be severe - or even deadly. It would be a horrible twist of fate if I were to kill her instead of ask her to some stupid dance. What if she broke her neck like Bill Flagrant did after the lake battle?
I’m not having any of that.
Instead I aim my pulse blast so that it shoots past her head harmlessly. Then I turn tail and fly away from her.
But, I realize that flying away in a straight line is pointless. I did not go to the Prometheus school of running away.
I need to find some sort of cover so that I can slow Mae down until I can figure out a way to get her to snap out of her trance. I’m still not even sure if she’s under someone else’s constant manipulation or if she’s simply been given some sort of mission and will now act it out in whatever means she sees fit.
Of course, being up in the air a
bove a football field gives me precious little places to hide and even less objects for me to put between myself and Mae’s armored feet. Curse her ingenuity and creativity!
I squint against the chilly air and search for somewhere - anywhere that I can hide. There’s the announcer’s box at the top of a pillar-like building. But, that’s locked up. The most I can do is fly around it in a circle, and that will do little to help me.
My mind focuses on all the grass and the rubber track that circles it. Those things won’t help me at all.
Then I feel like I’ve been conked over the head when I lock eyes on the bleachers.
Both sides are identical and at first glance seem to be just a stack of seats. Then I look closer and realize that they aren’t a solid structure. Beneath them is a pathway that stretches the entire length of the stadium.
I glance over my shoulder as I near the end of the football field and note that Mae is not far behind - maybe only twenty feet or so. She’ll soon catch up if she keeps increasing her speed the way she is. I feel out of practice.
Without missing a beat, and before Mae can realize what I’m doing, I shoot down towards the ground and maneuver myself so that I do a U-turn and duck beneath the bleachers and head straight down the hidden pathway.
As expected, the area beneath the bleachers is incredibly dirty and dark. I spot crumpled candy wrappers and crushed cans that once contained soda from the snack shack littered everywhere. Despite the grossness of the area, I now have some sort of cover from Mae, though that doesn’t last long.
Behind me, Mae arrives at the entrance to the pathway and lets out a frustrated cry before leveling her body and following me through the enclosed path.
The end of the bleachers is just up ahead. With my thirty second head start, I should be able to make it out of the enclosed pathway before Mae reaches the midpoint of the bleachers. That should give me enough time to find real cover and hide until I can formulate some sort of plan to stop Mae from trying to slice my face off with her cleats.
My stomach stings as the cold air rushes past it.
This needs to end immediately.
Mae is gaining on me with every passing second, so I put on an extra burst of speed and shoot out the end of the bleachers, racing up into the open air and twisting myself so that I can shoot around the edge of the stadium and hide myself behind a post.
Once hidden, I focus on quieting my breath, which takes more effort than I expect. My pulse throbs in my ears like a gigantic drum and I feel my eyes twitching. I squeeze them shut and clench my hands into fists until at last I’m calm.
I listen, waiting for Mae to emerge from beneath the stadium. She does after a few seconds and I hold my breath, praying that she hasn’t spotted me yet.
Even after all this chasing, she still does not say a word. Her vocabulary seems to have been simplified into a series of screams and grunts, most of those sounding very frustrated.
It’s as if she’s turned into some sort of animal.
The growls continue, echoing off the empty, cold structures in the complex.
I risk a glance around the edge of the pillar that hides me and am relieved to see that Mae is facing away from me. In fact, she’s looking out over the football field, no doubt searching for me in the bleachers beside her.
This is my chance.
Speaking to Mae seems to do nothing. In all the movies that I’ve ever seen, most notably Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a person under the influence of a spell or hypnosis is only relieved of their mental enslavement by being burned or struck across the head.
I don’t have any fire, but I do have my pulse blasts.
Hitting Mae with one might be my only course of action.
Again, I don’t want to hit her so hard that it does irreparable damage - but, just hard enough that it knocks her out of her haze.
I go for it.
Before she realizes what’s going on, I aim my hands at her and generate two balls of purple energy about the size of baseballs. Then, in a swift motion, I hurl both of those balls of energy at Mae.
One of them misses her by inches and disappears into the night sky. The other one strikes her in the right shoulder, sending her spinning around. Unfortunately this doesn’t shake her from her hypnosis and now she locks eyes on me.
There’s another snarl and then she’s zooming towards me with one foot aimed straight for my face.
“Mae…I’m sorry,” I mutter under my breath. She doesn’t hear it, but that hardly matters.
I’m forced to do the only thing possible to defend myself, which is to send another pulse blast head-on at her. Except, this time the pulse blast isn’t the size of a baseball. I generate the blast between both hands, cupping them towards each other as the energy flows in tiny streams of purple light from all ten of my fingers. This energy collects in a swirling ball of light that drips white light.
The ball of energy grows and grows as Mae gets closer and closer. I stretch it out for as long as possible, capturing as much of my energy as I can before she reaches me.
Mae is only a foot from me when my time is up.
In a split second I bring my hands together behind the ball of glowing energy and force it away from my body with a cry.
The energy zips through the air with a sound like a firework screeching into the night sky and Mae’s eyes widen for a moment before the ball of energy, now the size of a beach ball, explodes against her chest.
Her hands go flying back, and so do her legs as the energy stops her in her path. The energy is so strong that it actually reverses her course and sends her back the way she came. Her eyes close and her body goes limp like a rag doll, and I let out a grunt as Mae goes soaring through the air towards the football field.
Now that my threat is taken out, my mind focuses on what happens once Mae hits the ground. She could break a leg or even her neck.
I won’t let that happen.
Using up all my remaining energy, I blast myself towards Mae, shooting past her completely until I reach the turf of the playing field. With my feet planted on the ground, I turn around and see Mae falling in my direction.
With arms outstretched I grab onto anything that I can reach - limbs, clothes, torso - and fall back onto the field with Mae clutched in my arms.
My breath is knocked from my chest and I gasp.
Mae’s body rolls away from me, completely lifeless.
16
Faceplant
My lungs are so depleted of air that I can’t even breathe out. All I can do is gasp, gulping in great lung-fulls of air, until at last I manage to raise myself up on one elbow and spot Mae where she lays only a few feet from me.
Her body is crumpled over and I fear the worst.
Did my energy blast break any of her bones? Is she paralyzed?
I roll over and force myself to my hands and knees so that I can crawl over to Mae.
“Mae!” I say, reaching out a trembling hand to her. “Mae, can you hear me? Mae!”
I reach her in a matter of seconds and scoop an arm under her shoulders. She is still heavy, which I hope is a good sign.
Leaning down, I place one ear above her lips and listen for breathing. At first I don’t hear anything, but then the soft sounds of Mae’s breath coming in and out of her lungs gets my close attention.
She’s breathing!
I straighten up and rest a hand against her cheek.
“Mae?” I say, as if I’m speaking to a sleeping child. “Are you able to wake up? Please…”
It takes a few moments, but tears well up in my eyes as Mae stirs and squeezes her eyes shut before blinking them open rapidly. A groan sounds from deep in her chest.
“Shaun?” she says, a look of confusion in her eyes. “What are we doing at the school?”
“You don’t remember?” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand.”None of it?”
Mae sits up, pulling herself up by wrapping her arms around her knees. She is able to steady
herself now and the two of us sit close to each other.
“I don’t remember coming here…” she mutters.
I let out a single forced laugh and point to her jacket pocket.
“Check your phone,” I say. “I asked if we could meet up, and you told me to meet you here. Do you remember doing any of that?”
Mae pulls out her phone and verifies that I’m right. She tilts her head back and closes her eyes in frustration.
“What is going on?” she asks.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m positive that whatever happened to you that Austin is behind it. Do you remember anything from earlier tonight?”
Mae thinks back, then she throws her hands down.
“I was trying out that headset with my phone - the one we got at the convention.” She loads the list of apps running in the background on her phone and sure enough, the Virtual Solutions app is launched. As soon as she taps on it, a low frequency humming blasts from her speakers.
My mind starts to go fuzzy.
“Turn it off!” I say. “Close the app!”
Mae swipes it away and the humming fades out.
We both look at each other, the realization of what’s happening evident in our eyes.
“This is definitely Austin’s work,” I say. Then I run a hand through my messy hair. “I knew he was waiting to attack with some grand plan! Do you see? He gave out those headsets at the convention to lure in people so that he could brainwash them with his app. He must be telling people to take me down and bring the Vestige to him and Bill.”
I shake my head.
Mae looks stunned.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Don’t be,” I reply. “It’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing what that app was going to do. Imagine if I had used it. Would I have surrendered the Vestige to the two of them?”
The idea makes me clench my jaw.
The Aberrant Series (Book 3): Super Villain Page 7