He continues.
“Your friend Kimberly was wise to get as far away from here as possible. You’re obviously not as smart as her since you walked right into the heart of the lion’s den.”
Mae steps up beside me as I call out to Austin.
“Show yourself!”
The laughter subsides and Austin replies, “I won’t show myself until you hand over the Vestige. Both pieces of it.”
My fists clench at my sides.
“You know I’m never going to do that,” I say. “I won’t hand it over, no matter how much mind control you try to use against me. I’m not one of your puppets.”
Austin chuckles. The sound is unnerving through all the speakerphones.
“You might not be one of my puppets,” he says, “but all of these people are.”
A screeching sound makes my ears ache. Everyone around cowers with their hands up to the sides of their heads. But the sound lasts only a split second before going inaudible. In its wake, the crowd of people - now numbering at least thirty individuals - straightens up and I see that their eyes contain that same hollow look that Mae had when she was under Austin’s mind control.
These people step forward menacingly as one.
I reach out and get between Mae and the crowd. We can always fly out of here, but if we’re tackled by people and forced to use our abilities against civilians, that will put us even deeper in the hole with the police. The only way we’re going to get them on our sides is to turn in The Cloak and The Drone. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen if we can’t even locate them.
“What do we do?” asks Mae timidly behind me.
“Just stay calm,” I reply. “No sudden moves.”
Austin’s voice speaks out again.
“These people will do my bidding without question. If you want to get to me, you need to go through them, and something tells me that you don’t want to do that.” He pauses as his voice echoes around the street. “Now, I’ve asked nicely once, and I’ll ask one more time for you to hand over the Vestige and put an end to this pointless battle. If you don’t comply, things are going to get even worse for you.”
I grit my teeth.
“I don’t know how they can get much worse than this,” I growl, “but, I already told you I’m not surrendering.”
There’s a click of feedback from the phones as everyone stands absolutely still. Then, Austin replies, “Have it your way. My people - seize these two terrorists and unmask them!”
24
Two Against…What?
Like a mob at a protest, suddenly the group of spectators attacks.
I don’t even have a moment to figure out a plan of attack - if I even want to attack these people. They are moving, lunging, striking with their arms and lashing out for anything that is in reach. One woman manages to wrap her fingers around the edge of my jacket as I turn to run. Another person dives for my legs, but a group of regular people is no match for me. The real problem is whether or not I use my powers against them.
Fighting the urge to just blast them away from me with my pulse blasts, I shake the woman away from my jacket and kick at the guy who’s trying to wrap his arms around my legs.
“Get off!” I yell, leaping up into the air and soaring above the mess. These people are like something out a zombie apocalypse show, except they’re making no sounds with their voices whatsoever. Their expressions are placid like Mae’s was when she was under the influence.
Suddenly I hear a scream.
“Mae!”
I thought she was right behind me, but three guys have ganged up on her. One grabs her by the arms, yanking her down to the tar even as she tries to fly up with me. The other two guys are trying to keep her from kicking her way out of the pile.
I start to swoop down and help, but Mae is one step ahead - and clearly not worrying about injuring people like I am. Despite all the cameras in the area, electronic eyes zoomed right in on us, Mae activates her spiked boots and the shiny silver points come snapping out of her soles. She jabs a foot at one of the guys to her right, getting him in the stomach. He doubles back and is the first person to cry out. It’s a lonely, eerie sound on the almost peaceful street.
Mae goes to swipe her other foot at a second person, but about five other people are descending upon her.
Those shoes won’t be enough for her to get free and into the air.
I give up my nobility and fly down to her aid.
“Get off her!” I yell, slamming full-force into the guy that has her arms. Once Mae’s on her feet, I swipe out my hand and send a stream of energy around us. This causes the people charging at me to step back, giving me enough time to yank Mae into the air. The smell of sweat and blood now stings my nose and lingers with me as I get Mae up high above the crowd, completely clearing the nearby buildings until there’s nothing but the sound of the wind in our ears.
Looking down I see the flashing lights of police cruisers arriving. I wonder if the spell that The Cloak had those people under has worn off. Whether it has or not, one thing is for sure - yet again, Austin is not here. Neither is The Drone, who I expected to come out and put up a good fight.
“Are you alright?” I ask, keeping my hands on Mae’s arms in case she wavers in the air.
Though she looks shaken, Mae straightens up.
“I’m fine,” she says. “I tried to fight back.”
I shake my head. “There were too many of them. If we knocked down one, there was another one to take their place.” I grit my teeth and groan. “I never thought that The Cloak would use normal ordinary people against us.”
“Does he expect us to disable them all?” asks Mae. Her hair blows across her eyes as she locks them onto mine. I can see that what we just witnessed and experienced has really gotten to her. It’s caused a horrible queasy feeling to settle in my stomach as well.
I try to shake this feeling off.
“We can’t stay here,” I say. “Let’s get out of here and get to safety.”
Mae agrees and we soar up higher above the clouds. This fight is not as easy as I thought it was going to be. While I was so concerned about Austin using his mind control against me again - or even Mae, it looks like he’s trying to prove a point. He told me that I would get to the point where turning the Vestige over voluntarily would be the only rational option.
As much as I hate to admit it, if I’m going up against hordes of people now, The Cloak might have been telling the truth.
25
Regroup
It seems like we’ve been cowering back to Mae’s house an awful lot, but even so, the two of us regroup there after fleeing the Virtual Solutions offices because it is the safest place we can think of that we are familiar with. I feel a swirling combination of fear, anger, and frustration in retreating, but what else can we do? This whole incident worked in The Cloak’s favor. There is no doubt that he used those civilians as a double-edged sword. They were a human shield, even as The Cloak communicated remotely, and they were also an attack force with their hands, feet, and phones. Mae and I must be plastered all over the internet. Even our costumes won’t protect us now.
At least we had the good sense to send Kimberly on her way back to Maine to reunite with her father. I have no idea how the authorities up there will handle her experience, but it’s clear from all our interactions with the police force nearby that The Cloak’s brainwashing is overwhelming even for any police involved. Whose side will they take? The two costumed kids, or the mob of people?
“I can’t believe it,” I say as I pull my visor off my face and toss it onto Mae’s bed. “It’s like nobody can see that we are the good guys! Austin has turned the public into his minions.”
Mae slumps down in the chair by her desk with a groan.
“Talking to people won’t do us any good,” she says. “Nobody under Austin’s influence is going to see reason unless you knock them on their butts like you did to me. Even I didn’t hurt anyone enough to knock some sen
se into them. There must be at least a hundred or more people listening to Austin - and there’s no way you or I can take them all down on our own.”
“Would we even want to?” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. “Austin wants us to get physical against these brainwashed minions so that even without hypnosis, the police will have no other option but to take us into custody and lock us up.”
The situation seems hopeless. Part of me wants to just curl up in a ball and hide somewhere. Another part of me wants to run away and never look back.
But, neither of those are viable or productive options.
Even so, we’re stuck. We’re like a rabbit in a hole with a raging fire trying to burn us out into the open.
We are the prey.
Mae turns to her computer and starts clicking around. I chuckle as it looks like she’s searching for answers.
“What are you trying to do?” I ask. “Is there some website listed on Google that explains how to take down two supervillains using mind control?”
Mae ignores me. Instead of listening to my ramblings, she seems to become completely absorbed in whatever information her eyes are processing. She leans closer to the screen, her eyes widening.
“That’s it,” says Mae under her breath as she hunches over her computer screen. She scrolls through some pages of coding with a few flicks of her finger, then pulls out her phone and becomes buried in it, navigating windows that I can’t see. She shakes her head. “I can’t believe I never thought of this before…”
“What?” I say, stepping up behind her. “What did you find out?”
I crane my neck to see over her shoulder as she taps around on her phone. The gray backdrop of the settings menu fills the screen and Mae taps on a few obscure items that I have never seen before on my own phone.
She glances over her shoulder at me.
“His phone,” she says. “Austin’s phone. He’s been using it in a way that I would have never guessed just by looking at it.” She holds up her own phone, but I’m still confused, so she continues. “When I was hypnotized - manipulated - by Austin’s app, it was caused by a sound that I thought was embedded inside the app. However, on further investigation, I couldn’t find the sound file anywhere in the app’s coding. I dismantled everything I could, but there was nothing. At first I thought that the app had been tampered with somehow. Obviously Austin had to know that I had launched the app and used it since everything’s logged digitally and feedback is sent to the app developer. But, when I checked, there was no update to the app. It was still version 1.0.
“Now, without an audio file in the app itself, I decided that the sound must have been transmitted or streamed into my device by some external source. Austin controls that source, and in fact, it is something that is so close to him that he feels like it cannot be taken away from him by anybody.”
She shakes the iPhone in front of herself.
“His phone.”
I blink, taking all of this information in.
“Are you telling me that Austin is controlling everyone with a simple smartphone?” I ask.
Mae nods.
“Think about it carefully,” she says. “He’s using his phone as a host for the file, that way nobody will be able to take legal action against him for damages that his app causes. The content was streamed through all the other phones. The same logic is used by people who pirate television and movies. They don’t actually possess the file on their machines. They are just accessing it.” She turns her chair around and stands up. “Don’t you remember back in Sebago National Park? You were hypnotized there with visions of your father. Austin was the one who did that to you - and he did it through the very same means that he’s using now: his phone. Of course, we found that metal pin jabbing you in the shoulder - I’m willing to bet money that the pin in question wasn’t injecting you with hallucinogens at all. It was a transceiver for Austin’s audio signal. I bet that you were the guinea pig for him just to see if it was possible to use the sound for manipulation across long distances.”
“And you were the test run of the official thing,” I finish for her, shaking my head. I lean back on the desk. It’s all becoming clear. “He’s just taking his influence and amplifying it using this app. This is worse than people hacking into your camera to spy on you.”
“I’ll say,” Mae replies with a somber expression. “The camera on your phone can’t make you run out into the street and get hit by a car, no matter how much hacking someone does to it. This audio file can do that, and it’s being used to take us down.”
I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “We’re up against an army.”
What we are up against seems impossible. What is the solution if we can’t get to The Cloak and The Drone because they have hordes of people surrounding them? Are we supposed to blast our way through civilians that are being used as human shields?
I could never do that, and I’m positive that Mae couldn’t, either.
“We’re stuck,” I say.
Then Mae smiles.
“Not so fast.”
She takes me by the hand and leads me out of her room, down the hallway and the stairs, and over to the doorway to the basement without saying a word.
“Mae, what’s going on?” I ask.
She simply hushes me and takes me down into the basement and into a corner where we hid the Vestige and its accompanying shard a few months back. The musty smell of damp air hits my nostrils and Mae crouches down to grab a thick plastic bucket from one of the lower shelves of a metal storage unit. With the cover torn off and tossed aside, Mae begins to rummage through a bunch of random junk.
I stand a few steps away from her with my arms folded to fend off the chill in the air. Mae pays no notice to me, so I prod her again.
“What in the world are you looking for?” I ask.
Suddenly she yanks a battered Motorola phone from the bottom of the box, along with an old wireless router. The cables are all tangled, and the plastic on both devices is cracked and worn out, but there’s no mistaking what either of these things are.
She holds them up as if they are prizes on a gameshow.
“This is it!” she exclaims. “We can create a box to jam The Cloak’s cell phone signal, then you can swoop in and grab the phone when he’s distracted. It will be perfect!” Mae is practically bouncing up and down in place now with excitement. “Just think - if we can stop the hypnotic frequency, that will eliminate all of Austin’s unwilling minions with no harm to them, and it will give us a chance to turn the tables on him and The Drone. With the cops already nearby, we’ll practically be handing the two of them over.”
I press my lips together.
“It sounds just crazy enough to work,” I say as Mae begins to grab other random pieces of old technology from various shelves in front of us. “Are you sure that you can put something together that will jam the signal?”
Mae stops and gives me that look, the one where she questions my sanity.
“Shaun, who do you think you’re talking to?” she asks. “I’m sure I can block out a cell phone signal with a simple disruptor. The real question is, where are we going to make the attempt? Failure is not an option this time. We might not get another chance to fight these guys…” Her voice trails off. “We might not be alive for another chance.”
The reality of this has already settled in my gut, and I shiver.
Mae is right. Our chances are quickly running out, if they haven’t run out already. We need to act quickly and with precision. There’s no time for us to go in with our guns half-cocked.
My father may have started this battle with Bill and Austin, but it’s time for me to end this.
I look Mae in the eye.
“You focus on getting that signal jammer together,” I tell her. “Once that’s up and running, we will make our final attack - come what may.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“Where are we going to make this attack?” she asks.
/>
I grunt.
“Leave that to me.”
26
The Cause Of It All
Bill watched the computer monitor with a surprised smile on his face. The footage from the news cameras played in repeat, showing Fallout and Mecha using physical force against the crowd of people around them.
Even with a visor in front of his eyes, the shock on Shaun Boding’s face was delicious.
“I am impressed,” said Bill as Austin entered the room carrying some food on a plate, along with glasses of iced water. Bill pointed at his screen. “Fallout and Mecha got to our doorstep and still couldn’t get us. If we had been there, it would have been the end of the line for us. Your mind controls really evened the playing field.”
Austin handed him a glass and set the tray, containing sandwiches and chips, on the desk.
“I keep telling you,” Austin replied. “It’s not the powers you have, but how you use them that make you formidable.”
Bill took one of the sandwiches and bit off a large mouthful, relishing in the taste of rare roast beef.
“You’re not as crazy as you seem,” he said through the mouthful. “You have tact. I only tried to use the boy’s family against him - which got me paralyzed. But, you use everyone in the vicinity. That’s very clever.” He set down the sandwich and swallowed. “But, I’m still not sure how you do it. How you do any of it.”
Austin didn’t make eye contact.
“Don’t mark yourself down,” he said. “You know how the app works.”
Bill finished a drink of his water and set the glass on the desk with a clink.
“But, it’s more than that.” He caught Austin’s eyes. “It’s been more than that from the beginning. If you don’t hold a piece of the Vestige, how can you harness these types of abilities?”
The Aberrant Series (Book 3): Super Villain Page 11