The Xtra- Volume One

by Oliver Willis

  The image then changes to a woman in her late twenties, a plump brunette wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses. The on-screen text identifies her as "Jenny Hedson, Teacher."

  "I can't believe it," she says. "I was just holding his little hand before it happened. That little, baby hand."

  "He ran to me, just after that – thing, that animal – appeared. We ran. We ran so fast. I thought we had gotten away."

  She sniffs and looks to the ground.

  "I just felt a tug. Just a quick, strong tug. And he was gone. That creature, he---"

  She breaks down crying, sobbing, as the video clip goes on for too long. At least twenty seconds longer than it should be. The station is getting its money's worth from her suffering.

  The video switches to footage of a small coffin being lowered into a burial plot. The shot is from a distance, but the camera still seems to be intruding, poking its nose somewhere it shouldn't.

  "Laid to rest in a tiny coffin," the anchor continues. "A death that some are saying could have been prevented."

  The image shifts again to a young couple. They are sitting side by side against a solid black backdrop. Both look tired and worn down.

  "The blood is on her hands," the bald man with a thick, white beard says. Edison Treadwell, the father. "Carla Logan. The Xtra. That woman. You all know who she is."

  The woman next to him nods, then pushes up the bridge of her glasses to keep them in place. Maya Treadwell, who has just lost her baby boy.

  "She says she's a hero," the woman says. "But she ran in to the situation half-cocked, without training. From what I understand what she did may have just aggravated this thing. Maybe if she had been trained, or let someone who actually deals with this sort of thing do their jobs, maybe my baby---"

  She breaks off and her shoulders shake as she began bawling intensely.

  The image cuts to the reporter conducting the interview. She is extremely gorgeous, makeup perfectly applied. She pouts as she over-emotes for the camera. She's been trained well and knows how to milk this emotional moment for all its worth. Visions of ratings and a promotion dance through her head.

  "How are you holding up? How do you go on?" she asks, dripping with sincerity for the cameras.

  Maya closes her eyes for a second, contemplating this momentous question. You can see how heavily the loss weighs on her, how her heart is broken and her need to make the world understand the depth of her loss.

  She and her husband hold hands, their fingers intertwined as they both try to give the other one the strength to continue.

  "Not great," Maya replies. "Not well. I wake up and listen for his voice. I keep looking for him, wanting to see him run into our room. Edison –"

  Both start sobbing. The reporter is silent as the camera makes a quit cut to her. Make sure the audience sees that she feels these emotions too. She's a part of the story, not just an observer.

  "He's so quiet now. Sometimes I see him just staring off somewhere, like he isn't here at all," Mata continues. "I feel like I'm gone too. It isn't right."

  The reporter nods in a slow and exaggerated fashion. Later she will celebrate this coup.

  The camera watches it all, soaking it in and broadcasting the images to millions. Even millions more will see it online after the station rushes to upload it.

  The family of a murdered child makes for compelling television.

  The image cuts back to the anchor, who again narrows his eyes.

  "Many are raising serious questions about what happened and what went wrong," he solemnly intones. "Serious questions."

  Chapter 75

  I don't know how long I've been sitting on this couch. It could be hours. Maybe a few days. I don't know. I've been in a daze since I killed that monster.

  I don't even remember flying away and leaving the school. I have no idea how I got back to Taylor's place. It's sort of like when you drive from work to home a million times and drift off in-between. When you get there you're startled at how your muscle memory took over and did the hard work. Flying is the same I suppose.

  It's hard to care. I feel numb.

  The television has been on all this time. Yelling at me, screaming at me. Describing everything I did and didn't do, over and over again on a seemingly infinite loop. I shouldn't watch but I can't turn it off. Penance.

  This is what I deserve. This and so much more. Maybe even worse.

  I'm being yelled at by families, reporters, and random men and women on the street who are always willing to give a camera their two cents. There's probably some catharsis there. By yelling on television they're yelling at me.

  I hear you.

  When I close my eyes, it's even worse. I see him. Every time. Little Christopher, smiling and innocent one second and dismembered and destroyed the next. On and on, over and over again. His memory haunts every second of my existence.

  They condemn me because they are right. I went in, believing my own hype, assuming I had it "handled" and "taken care of." All the criticism I brushed off and ignored, the concerns I dismissed. All right.

  Taylor comes into the room from time to time. She tries to talk to me but it's like she's not even there. I look her right in the eyes but she might as well be a million miles away. I'm just a husk, sitting on this couch, watching a constant dissection of the worst thing I have ever done. Over and over and over.

  He's dead because of me.

  They don't need to tell me. I know it more than anyone. I bear the shame and loathing and responsibility. If they wanted to nail me to a cross, I'd hand them the hammer and spikes to make it happen.

  ###

  Taylor pushes the phone into my hand and forces my fingers closed to hold it, then she props it up next to my ear. I have a good mind to throw the device as far as I can. If I tried hard enough, I could probably get it a few miles away.

  All that strength was useless.

  "Baby."

  I hear Dad's voice and it's the only thing stopping me from trashing the phone. I've known that voice since the day I was born and it has a special hold on me, even now, when I am in a pit of despair.

  "Are you there?" he asks.

  I hold the phone to my ear, afraid to say anything. I felt horrible enough about what happened but the thought of how I failed him makes the weight even heavier. My arrogance betrayed everything he and Mom taught me.

  Dishonor.

  "I know you're there," he finally says. "I understand why you don't want to speak. I really do."

  "Dad," I reply, unable to say much more.

  "You feel alone. I get that. No matter what anyone says, with the best intentions, that's a fact. I've been there. I've stood there in the desert, good men dead at my feet. I could have done something – anything – to prevent it. But I didn't. Their deaths are on me. My burden."

  I've seen him thinking about this before. Quiet moments when he doesn't think anyone is watching. Here and there, just briefly, over the years. Mom saw it too. We only spoke about it once or twice. It wasn't that he was hiding it or being stoic, but he just wanted to leave it be. It was a part of him.

  "He was so small, Dad. Just a baby."

  Tears flow down my face, sliding down what has now become a familiar path. I've cried so much. As much as I did when Mom died. Even as tragic as her case was, she had lived a life. This little boy, he was just starting, barely past being a toddler. Now he's in a coffin deep under the ground, his body in pieces.

  "I know. I know. I get it. This is unfair. Life's tough enough without you being this way, getting these powers, and the responsibility."

  "So small."

  "I wish you would just turn off the TV. Ignore them and stop punishing yourself."

  "I have to see and hear it, Dad. I need to know what I did, who I hurt. I have to pay the price for my arrogance and stupidity."

  On the other end of the line I can hear him quietly crying, his heart aching for me, trying to take some of the burden I am feeling onto his back.

  But t
hat isn't possible. Despite his great intensions and the absolute purity of his emotions, this is mine to bear.

  I did this. I caused that precious little boy to be murdered.

  Chapter 76

  Madden Blanc has been smiling. He has been smiling for so long that the corners of his mouth hurt. It is a position his mouth is unused to but for the first in a long time – longer than he realized – he feels genuine joy.

  He was also transfixed by the television coverage but what he saw was not the carnage and destruction caused by his personal beast, but the defeat and humiliation on Cara Logan's face as she flew away from the scene.

  It was delicious.

  She was broken.

  Blanc has seen this before in the faces of the weakest peasants as well as with the purportedly powerful. It is one of the fringe benefits of having his place in the world. The power to break the will of another human (or whatever she is).

  That was more valuable to him than the massive bank accounts, the office towers, the mansions, the international facilities, all of it.

  He had planned for her to be dead by now but this was almost better. She was like a wild horse, running roughshod over the world he had built, but now she had been constrained in a harness, bent to his will and under his thumb, like so much else.

  Blanc hadn't realized it before but he had wanted this more than he wanted her dead. It had come as a pleasant surprise to him but now he was reveling in it.

  The large video screen in front of him loops through the footage, again and again. Her pretty brown face, covered in dirt and soot. Her clothing ripped. Her eyes cast down as she flew away.

  The life and zeal that had been there before, that was a threat to Blanc's proper place at the top of it all, was flickering like a flame in a hurricane. Almost out.

  And there was more.

  ###

  The Overseers are arranged as before in the video transmission, hooded and cloaked, floating in a pool of darkness. But they seem smaller now. Cowed. Humbled. Almost human.

  Almost.

  Blanc is still smiling. Even speaking to them can't damper his spirits. If anything, his happiness increased when the connection across the galaxies was initiated. Because they failed too.

  "We are aware of Danmoc's failure," the leader says. There is no overt emotion in its voice but Blanc would swear on a stack of bibles that he can hear some disappointment, somewhere.

  The leader continues.

  "Our calculations indicated the creature would subdue Logan and extinguish the threat."

  "Your calculations were wrong," Blanc says, his voice almost taking on a sing-song quality. He was loath to be deferential to these aliens before and certainly won't take that tactic now. Failure has lent him the upper hand and he has no reservations about making that clear.

  "Or perhaps your Earth formulations were inadequate. You were given specific code and technologies, perhaps your primitive implementation –"

  "No. No, no, no. You're not going to blame the human for this one. I followed your stupid rules and your idiotic plan and all the genetic and technical instructions you gave to us. I didn't deviate. I didn't fail. You did."

  "Our estimates were imprecise."

  The Overseer's voice is in the same tone as before, but Blanc can hear the resentment and disappointment. He has heard this before. You just have to know what you're listening for.

  For the first time in all the years he has had a connection to these beings, Madden Blanc has something of an upper hand on them. For years and years he followed along with their script, deferring to their knowledge and expertise that were able to mesh with his practical skills on Earth to get things done. Their search progressed and he profited.

  Now, when their prey is within their sights, their plan had done nothing more than kill a little boy while "The Xtra" is still alive.

  "Maybe if you had let me use Danmoc before we could have foreseen this failure and planned for it," he says, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

  "The subject is at an early stage. Our calculations suggested—"

  "They were wrong. You were wrong."

  The Overseers are silent.

  Blanc smiles some more, savoring the moment. Even across billions of miles of stardust the tension is thick and strong. The well-kept pet has turned on its master and is baring its fangs. It refuses to back down and instead is snapping at the master's fingers. Out for blood.

  "We are reassessing," the Overseer leader finally says. "We are currently conducting examinations and provisioning a solution for the problem. Until then you will proceed with normal operations and await instructions."

  Are they serious?

  Blanc's blood boils with rage. Anger now replaces the sarcasm and joy he had over his moment of insolence. He slams a fist against a wall in his office and it makes a loud thump.

  "No!" He yells.

  "Blanc. You will—"

  "I will not. I will not stand down. I will not retreat to my hole and wait on you, my lords and masters, to give me marching orders from on high. No!"

  He pounds the wall again to emphasize his point.

  "It will be a detriment—"

  "I don't care what you say. I have interests here, my own interests, things you and your cloaks and your dumb, useless animals have no interest in. I need my business, my needs, addressed. I will not sit and wait for you to give me orders. I will not."

  Blanc presses a button on his desk and the transmission is closed off. It is the first time he has ever initiated an end to a conversation with The Overseers. It feels good.

  Time to do things my way, he thinks. He presses a button to call his aide. The plan has begun.

  Chapter 77

  The cruise ship is nearly as big as three large office buildings in New York City. It seems impossible that such a massive structure could even exist, let alone float on top of the ocean, but it does.

  Moments ago, the hundreds of families on board barely took notice of the deep blue-green water around them. They were too busy eating, playing, or just doing nothing. They had saved up, scrimped and saved for their luxury trip and were intent on soaking up every penny of it.

  It was vacation time and their brains were turned off. No need.

  But now things are different. Their precarious position in the middle of the ocean, too far from civilization, is abundantly clear.

  Because the cruise ship is sinking.

  Alarms on the boat honk and blare, repeating themselves every minute, over and over. Red lights flash, bathing everything in a sign of obvious distress and panic and urgency.

  Crew members try to calmly direct passengers to the life boats on the side of the vessel, but there is a stampede of fear and anxiety. Thoughts of leisure and relaxation are long gone. They just want to survive and if that means trampling everything in their path, so be it.

  The sound of the ship breaking as the water gushes into the hole on the underside is challenged only by the loud screams each time the craft shudders.

  These people are in terror and have been reduced to their base instincts.

  "Look!" a little girl of about six years old yells. "Look!"

  She's pointing out to the horizon, but nobody is paying attention. They want to get off this doomed ship not indulge in the meaningless obsessions of a child who was, just minutes ago, prattling on about cotton candy.

  "Look, you dummies, she's here!"

  Most still ignore her. A couple glance in the direction she is pointing, and they feel some relief. Salvation.

  The Xtra is here.

  Chapter 78

  I've never been on a cruise before and from the looks of the mess before me I never will. There are just so many people that it seems insane that they were all (except for the crew) on vacation together.

  My parents and I used to take road trips and fly places in the summer time. Just the three of us. We would play games and talk and somehow get even closer as a family. I feel like surrounding yourselves with this many
other people, no matter how into the same kind of activities you all were, is asking for trouble.

  Trouble like sinking into the ocean.

  I quickly fly into the middle of the mess and start lifting up the life boats from below, pulling them out of the choppy water and the dangerous vortex the sinking ship is causing.

  The boats are filled with people but they feel relatively light, like a bag of groceries. I drop them off a few hundred feet away where the water is much calmer, then I do it again and again. The Coast Guard is on its way and they won't be stuck in the water long. I just had to get them out of immediate danger.

  I repeat this process over and over, getting the hang of it as I go along. I'm wet, but that's okay. Soon there is an ad-hoc flotilla of ships bunched up together in the calm waters.

  A cheer goes up and I allow myself a little smile. I nod to the crowd to acknowledge them.

  Not bad.

  Then I hear a loud crack, followed by a gigantic splash. I whip around in the air to see that a large section of the boat has broken off. That was where the last group of passengers was being lowered in life boats. The ships are bobbing along on the surface, while the water is filled with people.

  And some of them are sinking.

  No. I did it again. I can't believe I congratulated myself like that when the job wasn't done.

  I lock up. I see Christopher Treadwell and his corpse and his parents and everyone pointing out how I screwed up and the sinking feeling comes back. I just want to be home and on the couch and away from the world.

  Screams.

  I hear screams. I hear water splashing from kicking and screaming and I have to snap out of it and get things done.

  I shoot down to the surface of the water and plunge in. I maintain the momentum from flying and I see the people sinking into the murky deep.

  Not today.

  I will myself to fly their way, using that same speed I have in the air but now under water. I grab them up in my arms and shoot to the surface, using my foot to kick over the life boats. Hastily, I drop them in the boats and dive back down for more people. The adrenalin kicks in and I feel strength and energy like I did on that first day when I jumped in front of the bullet.