Subject 624

by Scott Ferrell

  “People of Salt Lake City,” Mr. Sterling began, “for those of you who do not know me, my name is Vincent Sterling, CEO and founder of Sterling Securities.”

  The banner at the bottom of the screen quickly changed to Vincent Sterling, CEO and founder of Sterling Securities.

  “As many of you know, my company has been based right here in Salt Lake City for nearly twenty-five years but has grown into a global company with home offices based in Denver, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, London, and Johannesburg. We deal in securities, obviously; everything from security guards to the largest and most sensitive buildings in New York City to protecting private citizens contracted in the Middle East.”

  “Good for you,” Mitchell muttered.

  “We pride ourselves on hiring only the most professional and well-trained individuals in the world…”

  “Are we watching the news or an infomercial?” Harris asked.

  “Shh,” Mom hissed.

  “…including a force of 400 officers here in the Salt Lake Valley with another 300 in the immediate area. To say we here at Sterling Securities know what we’re talking about is an understatement of maximum proportions.” He flashed a set of perfectly straight and unnaturally white teeth.

  Harris stood from the couch and started clapping. “Great speech! Well done!”

  “It is with this background that I stand here now,” Mr. Sterling said.

  “Oh, he’s not done.” Harris’ clapping faded and he sat back down.

  “But, as I have talked to many citizens around the city, it doesn’t take a background in security to realize the job our police force has been doing is inadequate at best. With each passing night, crime grows more and more out of control.” He held up a thin finger. “Don’t get me wrong. The proud men and women wearing those badges are doing an admirable job with the resources they’re provided. The blame, in my honest opinion, falls squarely on the shoulders of Chief Bouwman and other city officials, bureaucrats whose sole concern is a monetary bottom line.”

  “He said bottom,” Mitchell said.

  “Shh!” Mom hissed with force.

  “That is not fair to those of us who live in our great city and it’s not fair to the police officers sworn to protect it and us. That said, I would like to formally extend an offer from Sterling Securities to assist in the protection our city sorely needs. My little army,” he made little bunny ears with his fingers in the air around the word, “stands ready and waiting for Chief Bouwman and our fine mayor to call on us. I fully expect to hear from them soon as I’m sure they realize the needs of our citizens are not being met in this time of crisis. Thank you.”

  He stepped back from the podium and waved a hand at the gathered reporters who started shouting questions all out once, making it sound like a mash of random words. He flashed those teeth again as he moved away. Several men in suits and earpieces surrounded him as he walked off and the picture cut back to the reporter sitting at the desk. He immediately began to give a recap of the news conference.

  “I do believe Chief What’s-His-Face just got called out,” Mitchell said.

  “We should try to get out of the city.” Mom stood. “I’m going to call your father.”

  “I really don’t think we’d get out today,” I said, but she ignored me and hurried out of the room.

  I turned to head towards my bedroom, deciding I would definitely be needed out on the streets that night. If the police weren’t equipped to handle everything going on, then I would do what I could to help. Plus, I really wanted to keep an eye out for others out there who seemed to have abilities like me. I took a real pounding the previous night and if these guys attacked police officers, somebody could end up in the hospital or worse. I knew I could take the beating and bounce back even if they couldn’t.

  Chapter 14

  Day 5

  1:57 a.m.

  Confidence is usually a good thing. It’s when it moves into overconfidence territory that things get a little dicey. The line is fine. In spite of the beating I took the previous night, I was still confident in my abilities to bounce back as I prowled along the rooftop of one of the shorter buildings downtown.

  I was on the lookout for others like me. I knew they were out there. And knowing is half the battle, so I’ve heard. My dad used to quote that line and then go into a long-winded speech about being prepared.

  Well, I was prepared now. As prepared as I could be—meaning I knew there were challenges out there. What challenges? That part I didn’t know. The first guy who had nailed me with a board obviously had enhanced strength and speed like me, but the guy flinging hubcaps around with his mind? That’s a whole other matter. I wondered what other powers were out there.

  Luckily I hadn’t come across any more kids with freak-like X-Men abilities tonight. It had been regular street punks. And a lot of them. The streets were crowded with kids ranging from fourteen, all the way up to nineteen and twenty, I’d guess. Not much older, which was curious, to say the least. With the sheer number of delinquents roaming the streets, it was evident something whack was going on and I had no clue what.

  One thing was clear, my initial thought that some underground gang had decided to come out of hiding was wrong. As I moved from group to group, I started recognizing kids from school. I even had to punch a friend of mine since third grade. Twice. That wasn’t cool. But, I don’t care if we had sleepovers together as kids, if you throw bricks at my face, you get punched in yours. Thems the rules.

  If it was some massive new gang, I was pretty sure I would have heard about it. There would have been some kind of leak, or I probably would have been recruited at some point. I think. Possibly. But these guys, they didn’t act like a gang. Not that I’m an expert on gangs, but I didn’t think they went around breaking into stores and thrashing everything, but not steal any of it—besides one mannequin. Gangs didn’t roam the streets for a couple of hours causing mayhem together, then all of the sudden turn and beat the snot out of each other for no apparent reason and go to school the next day.

  There was definitely more police out on the streets, but they were stretched thin. From what I had seen, the random acts of violence and crime were slowly spreading out of downtown into the surrounding areas, including homes and business. There was a lot of ground for the boys in blue to cover and widening by the hour.

  One thing was obvious. In spite of Vincent Sterling’s offer to assist the police, I had yet to come across his little “army” as he had called them with his bunny ear quotation marks. It looked like Chief Bouwman hadn’t taken the offer.

  From my vantage on a rooftop, I scanned the streets. The block was relatively quiet besides a group of six kids milling about on a street corner. Surprisingly, they weren’t causing any trouble. Even more surprising, there were two girls included in their number. The first time I’d seen that.

  I wondered how I would handle the girls as I slid down the ladder that gave access to the building’s roof. When my sneakers hit the pavement, I pulled the ski mask over my face and stepped out of the alley. I casually strolled across the street towards the group.

  I was spotted almost immediately by the tallest of the group. He nudged the person next to him and jerked a head in my direction. They all turned toward me.

  “Evening,” I called out. “Gorgeous night, huh?” I glanced up. Dark clouds crawled across the sky.

  “I know you,” one said. His nose was bent slightly to the left.

  I faltered in my swaggering steps. “You do?”

  “You’re that guy from the TV, aren’t you?” another said. His eyes were a little too wide, but when he narrowed them, he looked like that -.- emoji. “The one running around like some kinda superhero wannabe.”

  “Oh. Na, that’s not me. I’m just out for a stroll. Fresh air and all that,” I said as they stepped off the curb into the street, closing the gap between us.

  My eyes flicked across the group, trying to assess what I was up against. Was one of them somebody who’d give
me trouble? Did one of them hide a secret ability like me? Besides Supertall, Bentnose, and Squinty-Eyes, there was also Longarms and the two girls, Tooskinny and Holycowdropdeadgorgeouslikewow. None of them looked older than eighteen.

  “Naw, you’re definitely that guy!” Longarms droned in a voice like a baritone blowing one long, low note.

  “It’s kinda late to be out,” I said. “Looks like a storm is coming. Why don’t you kids scurry on back home and apologizes to your mamas for smoking.”

  Holycowdropdeadgorgeouslikewow looked down at the lit cigarette pinched between her fingers. She brought her eyes back up and sneered. I downgraded her on the gorgeous meter and re-nicknamed her Yellowteeth.

  “It’s bad for your teeth,” I added.

  “You think you somethin’?” Supertall asked. “You look stupid with that ski mask on like you’re in a comic book.”

  “Yeah, you get on TV and you think you’re something special?” Tooskinny added.

  I lifted my hands, palms forward. “Look, you all obviously saw what I could do on that video, do you really want to—”

  Longarms rushed at me.

  Guess so.

  His right fist flashed out at my head. He definitely had the reach advantage, but I had speed on my side. I leaned to the left and his fist whizzed by my right ear. I stuck out my foot and his momentum carried him over it. He went sprawling into the street.

  Surprisingly, Yellowteeth was next to come at me. I sidestepped her, twirled and shoved her as she passed. She stumbled about ten yards before catching her balance. Luckily, she hadn’t gone flying on her face. I might have felt bad about that.

  Something smashed into the back of my head and I turned to find Bentnose recovering from hitting me with his elbow.

  “Uh,” he said, clearly surprised the blow hadn’t dropped me like a stone.

  I held up my right fist. When his eyes flicked to it, I lashed out with my left and he dropped to the pavement like a sack of unconscious potato punk.

  Supertall came at me. He didn’t appear to have any kind of attack plan. He just roared and rushed in with the intent of overwhelming me with his size. I bent at the waist at the last moment, buried my shoulder into his stomach, and stood up straight, flipping him over to land on his back. I heard his breath rush from his lungs.

  I turned to find Longarms recovered and swinging his long arms, covered in road rash from his tumble. He swung with reckless abandon, hoping one would connect. They didn’t. I took a few steps back, bending just out of reach of his blows. Yellowteeth pushed herself off the road and rushed me at the same time. She stepped in front of Longarms. His fist connected with the side of her head and she dropped, too.

  The moment of shocked hesitation gave me an opening. I kicked Longarms in the stomach and landed a wicked uppercut when he bent over. He flew backward off his feet and landed unmoving on the sidewalk.

  A mule kick to Supertall’s head as he pushed himself to his hands and knees sent him flopping to the pavement.

  I spun, expecting further attacks. If my math held up, with four on the ground, that left two more. I was surprised to find Squinty-Eyes and Tooskinny standing a little ways off, neither joining or running from the fight. Tooskinny had an altogether too pleased look on her face while Squinty-Eyes squinted at me.

  “I guess you really are something, aintcha?” Tooskinny said.

  “Last chance to run on home, kiddies,” I said. “I really don’t like hurting you guys, but—”

  “How do you hurt what you can’t see?” Tooskinny asked.

  “Uh. You’re right there.” I pointed at her.

  She raised two pencil-thin eyebrows and smiled knowingly. Right before my eyes, her body pinched inwards, squeezing until she disappeared into the dark.

  “Whoa. Trippy.”

  “Wait until you see what comes next,” Squinty-Eyes drawled.

  I took an involuntary step back when I looked at his eyes. They had grown to an inhuman size. We’re talking crazy, anime sized eyes here.

  “Dude, that’s just disturbing,” I said. “What’s your power? Freaking people out?”

  His eyes grew larger, surpassing anime size. My vision blurred. “What the…” I muttered. My head began to swim. I wanted to look away, but couldn’t. I could only watch as the pupils in those too-large eyes began to vibrate up and down, back and forth. I fought off a wave of nausea, but another quickly followed.

  “Got nothing cocky to say now, do you?” I heard Tooskinny’s voice from behind me. It twinkled with laughter.

  I swallowed a lump in the throat. An unseen weight laid gently over my body like a blanket that increased in with every passing moment. It pushed me down to one knee as my legs gave out from under me. Falling helped me pull my eyes from NotReallySquity-Eyes, but the weight remained on my shoulders. My stomach rolled and gurgled. I snatched the ski mask off my head just in time to empty the contents of my stomach, mostly chicken noodle soup from dinner, all over the street.

  “Eww, that’s gross,” TooSkinny squealed.

  She was still right behind me, so I made a blind grasp backward. Imagine my surprise when I actually grabbed her by the arm. I turned my head even though it felt like a ton of bricks had replaced my brain.

  She smiled at me and touched my cheek with her free hand. “Aw, you’re cute.” With that, her arm thinned and slipped from my fingers.

  I struggled with another wave of nausea and sensed more than felt NotReallySquity-Eyes approaching. I reached for TooSkinny again, but her body twisted unnaturally from my grasp. I made one more swipe for her, missing of course, before spinning and snatching NotReallySquity-Eyes by his belt. He squeaked as I lifted him from his feet and spun around, flinging him into TooSkinny. They fell to the ground in a tangle of freaky anime eyes and noodle-like limbs.

  I bent over and deposited a glob of bile onto the street. There wasn’t anything left in my stomach, but it apparently wasn’t finished trying to turn itself inside out. I dry-heaved a few more times before it settled. I staggered and tried to not tip over.

  As a team building exercise, my baseball coach once had us stand baseball bats up, put our foreheads on the end and spin around in circles like in those funny home videos. Yeah, it pretty much felt like that.

  I tried breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, hoping I could recover enough to defend myself before the two remaining punks untangled themselves. It turned out; I didn’t have to worry about that.

  A hand wrapped around my throat and my feet leave the ground. I blinked to clear my foggy vision, but a fist slammed into my face. My head snapped painfully to the side. Through the fog and stars popping in my vision, I saw TooSkinny and NotReallySquity-Eyes running away.

  Darkness pushed in and out of my vision like one of Nathen’s pulsing beats.

  “Who are you?” a voice growled. It was unnaturally deep. The kind of deep that rattled the skull.

  Another meaty punch sent my head snapping to the side. I felt my jaw dislocate. That hurt, sure, but not as much as working it back into place. It was an instinctive reaction. I couldn’t even be sure that I could have worked up the thought to fix it, but when I felt the sharp pain of it dislocating and locking, I worked it and felt it snap back into place. That caused my eyes to water. I felt myself going out like a slow fading light.

  A fist buried into my stomach. That woke me up as my stomach tried to push out whatever was left in it. Problem was, there was nothing left. Not even bile.

  “Who are you?” the voice demanded again.

  As I tried to fight off the dark, I realized I couldn’t breathe. Panic set in, clearing my head a bit. My eyes focused and I saw my attacker for the first time.

  He was a large man. And by large, I mean a Hulk kind of large. He must have been at least seven feet tall and all muscle. His skin stretched unnaturally over his thick, solid muscles. It looked painful, actually. His straggly blonde hair hung like a mop to his shoulders. His blue eyes bulged.

  �
�You are not one of ours, but I know you,” he said. “Who are you?”

  I wheezed a smart aleck remark that came out like “hhhhh” and punched the side of his head. I swear his head didn’t even move and his muscles swelled slightly. I tried a new tactic and swung one of my free hanging feet between his legs.

  It didn’t even affect him other than pissing him off even more. Apparently, he didn’t take kindly to having his junk targeted. Well, who does? He growled, cocked his hand back, and threw me like a baseball. I hit a streetlight in mid-flight which sent me spinning until I landed down the sidewalk a ways. I tried to take a breath, finding it odd how it went into my lungs sounding like a whistle. I rolled onto my back and stared up at a streetlight overhead.