by J. A. Giunta
She blinked again, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. “Yeah,” she replied, “thanks.” She eyed the wreckage of what had once been a car. Gasoline fumes stung her healing eyes, and the chemical reek mingled with spilled oil made it hard to breathe. “She do that?”
“Pretty much.” He gestured over to where the agents were putting restraints on the girl. “We got her, though.”
“I hope they’re using the good handcuffs.”
“I didn’t heal you, by the way. You regenerated on your own, like that guy at the station.”
“I got that.” She pushed herself up to standing and wiped her hands on her torn jeans. “By the way, a little heads up would’ve been nice.”
“No time.” He shrugged, but his look was apologetic. “I didn’t plan, just reacted.”
“That’s not what I would rate as improvement in the planning department.” Ember swiped at her eyes, clearing the last of the hazy blur from them. “And why would you knock on the window if you knew she was in there? It’s not like she was just hanging out in the back of a stranger’s car in an out of the way parking garage waiting to have a nice chat.”
“I thought if we tried talking to her, explained things...She’s not like that other guy. She didn’t kill anyone.”
“Bull!” Ember shot back. “She’s exactly like him. I saw what she did at the police station. She killed people, too.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?”
“This kind of crap...” She waved a hand at the wreckage. “This is what comes from acting without having all the information.”
“All the information? Would that include, oh, I don’t know, the fact that my sister’s a witch? My family is a powerful magical coven and they all work for a not-so-secret-anymore government entity?” He glared at her.
Ember hesitated, holding back the burning retort that sat on her tongue ready to be unloaded. What she really wanted was to make up for all the years of secrecy and lies, but words wouldn’t fix the betrayal he felt. Maybe even time wouldn’t heal this wound. But he was her brother and he deserved better. She would stay by him and do what she could to make amends. “In all seriousness, you had plenty of information in this case.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? How do you figure that?”
“Didn’t you get the memo?” she asked, her voice hot in her own mouth as she stomped over to the waiting agency car. The sound of her boots connecting with the pavement nearly hard enough to crack it ricocheted back at him from the nearby walls. “All us Supers are dangerous. Better get used to it.”
Eight
Wed, Aug 24, 11:04pm
- Lee -
Lee’s phone booped once. He pulled it out of his pocket for a look, drawing Will’s attention. He got the impression he was supposed to have left it at home. It was a text from Jen.
“Saw you two leave with Scully and Mulder,” she wrote. “You guys okay?”
They followed behind an armored vehicle, where the girl they’d captured was under guard. He’d overheard one of them say her name was Samantha Richmond. She was a junior at his school, but he couldn’t remember having seen her before. She was pretty in a way, though it was hard to tell with all the glaring. She had short blonde hair just past her ears, all streaked in shades of platinum, the toned body of a runner, freckles across her nose and bright green eyes that seemed to say she wanted to kill him.
Her seething hatred was somewhat justified. Lee had figured out how to block specific signals from her brain to her spine and was keeping her paralyzed from the neck down. She could breathe without any problem, move her head and talk. Allowing her anything more would have posed too great a risk. From what he knew of his own strength, he doubted the nylon ties would be enough to hold her for very long.
“Yeah,” he wrote back. “Not sure how long we’ll be gone.”
“Say something only you would know.”
Lee snorted, which drew an annoyed look from his sister.
“You have a stash of candy under your bed,” he replied. “You’re afraid of mimes. You have a crush on Andy. And your mom is hot.”
“K, it’s you. Jerk.” She sent a smiley face with its tongue sticking out. “One, don’t touch my candy. Ever. Two, mimes are creepy. Only evil is that quiet. Three, Brewer? I wouldn’t do him with your doodle. And everyone knows my mom is hot.”
“You’re not the only one in the car,” Ember said and frowned out the window. She was still mad, not entirely at him but angry all the same. “Turn your damn sound off.”
Lee looked up at Will and Emily in front. The noise didn’t seem to bother them, but he switched the phone to vibrate.
“Thanks again,” Jen wrote. “You’re like the world’s best all natural remedy. Hey! That can be your superhero name. Remedy!”
He sent a wide-eyed emoticon.
“You need a costume,” she went on. “Lab coat and a stethoscope? Blue scrubs with foot covers?”
“K, gotta go.”
He slipped the phone back into a pocket, as they pulled into a parking garage beneath a tall building. A few more buzzes against his leg, and the phone was finally silent.
There was a security checkpoint two floors down, with armed guards and a series of retractable steel pylons. Once past, they parked near an elevator and waited for Samantha to be led from the truck. Two agents carried her by the elbows, dragging her feet behind.
Lee had left her flooded with his cells but could only sense less than half now. He hadn’t directed them to leave, so what the heck had happened to them? They began to quickly dwindle, as light formed within her palms.
She burned them away, Lee realized, and with a flare they were mostly gone.
“Look out!” he shouted, and light erupted.
The men hadn’t heard him in time and were thrown wide by the blast, skin and clothes scorched. The girl pulled her arms free of the ties, reached down and tore away the leg restraints as well. Emily and Will were already out of the car with weapons drawn.
“Lee?” Will more stated than asked.
“I’m trying!” He directed his swarm toward her for a shock, but the blast had cut their number by a third. More light flashed from her palms. “She’s burning them away!” Lee said, struggling to create more. “I don’t think I can stop her.”
“I got this,” Ember said.
She left the car with a grim look on her face and walked straight toward Samantha with both hands balled into fists. From what he sensed, Lee knew his sister had no intention of using magic. Two agents had opened fire, causing pain but no visible damage—aside from Samantha’s clothes. The other two were down, clutching at their eyes and groaning in pain.
Samantha screamed and threw more light, scoring the truck with jagged burns. Will called for his agents to stand down, while Lee fought to invade her. It was like sending bugs into a zapper, except he was the one being zapped. Pieces of him, anyway. It didn’t hurt so much as it felt like loss and being drained of energy.
Ember dodged a blast of light, turned and twisted to the side as if she already knew it was coming. Two more went right past. Either she could read the girl’s mind, Lee considered as he watched on in disbelief, or his sister’s reflexes had been enhanced way beyond his own.
The girl panicked and disappeared.
“Nuh-uh,” Ember said and darted forward, a leap of at least seven feet. She grabbed at the air, and Samantha reappeared, her wrist in Ember’s hand. “I owe you,” his sister said and punched her in the nose.
Samantha’s head snapped back with the blow, her eyes went wide and legs became wobbly. With her power gone, canceled out by Ember’s, Lee was able to get cells inside again. He gave her a shock for good measure and caused the cells to begin duplicating. Samantha cried out and stiffened, would have fallen over if Ember hadn’t held tight and set her down.
Agents
were on her again, some newly arrived from the checkpoint. They lifted Samantha by the arms and began to restrain her once more, as medics exited the elevator to tend the wounded. Within a few moments, Lee was able to paralyze her once more.
He thought it strange they didn’t ask him for help. It wouldn’t have taken much effort to heal the agents once he had a minute to rest. Were they afraid he’d leave them contaminated, like he did Emily? Or maybe they weren’t cleared to know the full extent of his ability? He didn’t know which was worse, that the agents didn’t trust him or Will would let them suffer to keep a secret.
“Lee,” Will called him over. “How long can you keep her like this?”
He considered her power, how fast she’d been able to burn through all his cells. The only way he could keep her paralyzed was to alter her spine. It wasn’t that much different from healing an old injury. He just needed to focus on the outcome and let the cells do all the work.
“For as long as she’s in range,” he answered, “as long as she doesn’t use her power. Or,” he hesitated to add, “I can make it permanent.”
Samantha’s eyes welled with fear and pleading.
“No,” she said, and the emotion in her voice broke his heart. “Don’t. Please.”
“I could go with her,” Ember offered. She’d seen the look on Lee’s face, knew he was struggling. “Her powers won’t work if I touch her.”
“That’s not an option,” Will said. To Lee he added, “For you either. If you make it permanent, can you fix it later?”
Can I? Lee concentrated on the cells within her. He could sense what needed to be done, the damage to small areas. What if undoing it later causes a problem I can’t fix?
“I don’t know,” he said quietly, uncertain. “I think so.” The fear in her overwhelmed him, like a scream of despair from within his chest. “I mean, yes.” Lee looked her in the eyes, tried to reassure her. “I can fix it.”
“Do it,” Will said. To the agents carrying her, he added, “Take her to retraining once he’s done.”
Lee made the changes to her spine, so simple yet life changing. He’d never felt so horrible inside. Would Jen still think he was a hero if she knew? He gave the agents a nod, and they carried her away.
“You two next,” Will said to Emily and Ember when the elevator came back up. “Sorry, only one Super at a time. Protocol.”
After they’d gone, and the elevator returned, he and Will stepped inside. Lee was surprised to see there were no buttons, just plain white walls without seams. The doors closed, and they began to move. It was a good twenty floors down, he guessed, by the people he felt move in and out of his sensory bubble.
He still couldn’t shake the dirty feeling in his heart, that he’d hurt a helpless girl fully knowing he might not be able to undo it. Yes, she’d hurt people. She may have even been a bad person. All he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to use his power that way.
The doors opened to a concrete corridor, with two guards stationed outside. Will led Lee a few hundred feet away to a metal door he opened with a key card. The hallway continued on, though Lee couldn’t see any more doors before it turned in either direction. There was no one else to be seen but the men back the way they came.
Will held the door open, and Lee stepped through. The room was much like the elevator, seamless and pure white. Even the corners were smooth and rounded, as if the whole of it was made from a single piece. There was another glass door on the opposite side, but that one had no card reader, or handles for that matter.
“Good evening, sir,” a male voice said and filled the room. It was difficult to tell where it came from.
“Kellogg,” Will said evenly, in way of greeting. He stood patiently waiting for the door to open.
Kellogg said, “Welcome to the Bullet Squad, kid.”
“That’s...not an official designation,” Will said to Lee, in a manner that was as close to being annoyed as he’d seen of him so far. “Kellogg, you’re relieved.”
“What?” Kellogg nearly laughed in surprise, as if Will had made a joke. “Why? It’s not like he’ll remember.”
“You can be relieved,” Will replied, “or retired. The choice is yours.”
Lee couldn’t help but wonder if retired meant an unmarked grave. There was quiet for a moment.
“Yes, sir.”
A hiss sounded from ahead, and the thick glass door slid sideways into the wall. They stepped forward into a white hallway, and the door slid closed behind them. On both sides were what could only be described as cells, wide open rooms without seams and closed off by glass walls. Three on either side, only the first ones were occupied.
One held Jim Tompkins and a woman. They sat on a bed that looked like it was part of the wall, again like the entire room had been made from a single piece. They both wore simple white pants, a shirt and slippers. She was reading to Jim from a children’s book. He looked very different from the murderous guy Lee had shot in the face.
In the other was Samantha.
He’d paralyzed her not more than fifteen minutes ago, but she had a bandage over one eye now, held in place by gauze around her head. She’d been placed against the wall, still as a statue, next to a man showing her images on a tablet. They were both dressed in the same white outfits, sitting just as calm, as he swiped slowly from one to the next.
Lee knew in a sickening instant what had happened. While neither of them appeared mentally deficient or even childlike, it was clear something was wrong.
What had Will called it? Retraining?
This was what Kellogg had meant by the Bullet Squad. Both Jim and Samantha had been shot in the head, their brains shredded by metal slugs and had regenerated as clean slates. They were being taught from scratch how to live in the world, how to speak, how to act—how to serve.
“It’s not what you think,” Will said in that even tone. “They’re violent criminals with superpowers. We don’t have the resources or technology to contain them. At least this way they can help, join the team, be one of the good guys.”
“Whether they want to or not,” Lee pointed out. “How long before you do this to the ones who won’t cooperate? Then to all of us, just to be sure? You think you found an easy solution,” he said, as countless scenarios played out in his mind, more disappointed than afraid, “but you just gave every Super still out there a real reason to hide and, worse, to fight back.”
“I wish there was another way,” Will said, and Lee could feel that the sentiment was genuine. He truly believed they were doing the right thing. “We had to act fast, before more people got hurt. This was the best we could come up with.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Lee said. The scenarios had all played out, and not a single one had ended well. “Even if you find a better way, this is what they’ll want. Control. Over all of us.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Will promised. Again, he was sincere. “Work with me, and I’ll do everything in my power to protect you.”
Lee believed him, wanted it to be true, though in his heart and mind he knew those in charge would never trust in any power beyond their own. It was human nature to fear what can’t be controlled, to tame the wild beast or kill it in the trying. He had nothing but hope to cling to. The alternative was a bullet.
“When do we start?” he asked.
Will gave a half-smile. “We just did.”
- Ember -
Ember stared out the window, trying to ignore the armored truck ahead of them, while Lee fiddled with his phone. The image of the wreckage the girl had caused kept cropping up, and Ember had to force herself not to rub at her eyes. They were fine. They’d healed. But still her fingers itched to press on her lids and feel for damage.
“Hey, it’s rude to be on your phone when other people are right here,” Ember said.
Lee gave her a quizzical look.
&nbs
p; “At least set the damn thing to silent.” She slumped back into her seat, wishing that none of this had happened. That they weren’t heading into an unknown situation, preparing to be locked away in some secret facility. But it had happened, was happening, and the only way out now was through. Or ending up like the girl from the parking garage, stunned and restrained.
Agent Taylor drove them into another parking structure and headed down. Great, Ember thought, we’re going underground.
The truck ahead of them stopped at a guardhouse, where fat pillars barred the way ahead. Men in camo uniforms with guns stepped up to the vehicles. One checked Agent Taylor’s credentials, while another looked inside, nodding at Bailey in recognition. The pillars slid down into the floor with a grinding sound and the guards waved them through, the metal and concrete blockade rising back into place behind them.
That’s it, Ember thought. “That’s the end of life as we knew it.”
Lee shrugged. “That happened already,” he said, sliding out of the back seat. “This is just the next chapter of that story. One where I at least have some idea of what’s going on.” His tone held a bitter edge.
Ember looked around as a couple of agents hauled the unconscious girl out of the truck. Thick concrete walls enclosed them on every side, except where they had driven down the ramp. This was clearly not an ordinary parking structure. It could probably withstand an atomic blast.
Lee shouted a warning and Ember instinctively crouched, covering her eyes. Light flashed, followed by an explosion that echoed back from every side and threw the two agents into the walls. They hit with the sound of cracking bone and twin grunts before landing in separate heaps.
The girl broke through her restraints like they were made of paper. “Dammit! I knew those weren’t going to be strong enough,” Ember said, her ears still ringing from the blast.
Deputy Director Bailey and Agent Taylor had leaped from the car, weapons pointed at the girl, who continued to manipulate light into blasts of energy, throwing them at the agents and soldiers who now surrounded her. Shots rang out, but the bullets just bounced off her, pinging onto the floor.