The wind whips at your face (which does wonders for your sinuses!) and soon your tears dry up and your vision returns with full clarity. That’s when you remember the news studio was twenty-eight floors up. Tiny cars go by on the street below, growing rapidly in size as you hurtle towards the pavement below. This is gonna hurt….
KABOOOOM!!! The street explodes as if hit by a bomb. Windows shatter for a full-block-radius while a shockwave blasts through the vicinity. The only piece missing is the fiery explosion. Air comes in wheezing breaths. But when you find your footing and look around, you realize you’re completely unharmed. Just got the breath knocked out of you.
Dusting yourself off, you rise and climb out from the enormous impact crater. The street level is nothing but death and destruction. The world is eerily silent. Your stomach growls. Then the click-clack of metal tapping on pavement draws your attention. You turn to see a dog-sized robotic centipede crawling toward you. Suddenly, it springs to action and leaps up at you.
You recoil and deliver a hefty punch to the bot, shattering the machine instantly. A searing pain hits you in the shoulder, the same as touching a red-hot pan on the stove. It’s some kind of plasma bolt and you dash away just as another scorches the pavement below your feet.
Two more insectoid robots fly above you, blasting at you with high-energy weapons.
“Do gods feel pain, Roman?” a woman cries out. You turn back to see Catherine. Though she’s in plainclothes, she has an odd circuitry-laden glove that extends up her left forearm and wears a futuristic-looking rifle slung over her right shoulder. Two more robots roll along the street around her alligator skin boots.
She unslings her rifle and it hums to life. You rip out a light pole and charge in at her, ready to end this once and for all. But you’re stopped in your tracks when an energy beam blasts into you—sapping your strength.
All that delicious energy from the experiment flows out and is absorbed back into her rifle. You can feel it; your powers are gone. The light pole, suddenly heavy, drops from your grasp and you fall to your knees. Completely violated, you look up at Catherine with tears in your eyes.
“That’s called Deicide, the death of a god. Hope you like prison.”
She goes to sling the rifle, but as soon as she loosens her grip on the weapon, it flies from her grasp and into the sky. Catherine reaches up and her tech-glove flies off as well. Both go straight into the hands of a floating Nick Dorian.
The robots move aimlessly without the glove to control them. Nick turns the rifle on Catherine and the device hums once more. The same energy beam envelops her body and steals her powers before returning back to its source inside the weapon.
Catherine lets out a blood-curdling scream and falls down.
Nick grins. “Would you look at that? Paper beats Rock, then Scissors beats Paper. Game over.”
• Charge Catherine. You may be mortal, but your rage has more than enough strength to wring her neck.
• Beg Nick for mercy. He just saved your life; why not again?
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Golden Hour, Drone Shower
On the penthouse balcony, you lean against the railing and look out over the city. The sun wanes on the horizon, casting brilliant gold light that glimmers across the mirrored skyscrapers. An auspicious sign of your fortunes to come, perhaps.
Then you leap over the edge, catching yourself with the power of mind, and fly out into the concrete jungle ahead. Whatever Agent Droakam wants, he’ll just have to get in line. Somewhere out there is a woman who can rip a car in half, walk through a building like it were only tissue paper, and catch bullets with her teeth.
And you’re deliberately trying to piss her off.
You shake your head to clear the thought. The sunset is beautiful, but something else up here, a hundred and fifty feet in the air, catches your attention. A small, white object flies your way. Is it a bird? A plane? Nope, it’s a drone equipped with a go-pro. The four rotor-fans at each corner of the square chassis adjust to bring the unit closer while the center-mounted camera locks onto you.
“Buzz off,” you say, shoving the thing away with your telekinesis.
The little technological marvel tumbles through the air, rights itself, and comes to hover once more. The camera swivels until it finds you, and the drone resumes its aerial courtship.
“Fine, you wanna come with me? Let’s go!” you shout.
You mentally latch on and drag the drone with you as you soar straight up into the air. It only weighs a few pounds, so the extra effort is negligible, and you shoot up high above the city with your captive in tow. The engines protest, but the unit has no chance of pulling away.
Once you feel your breath shorten and your vision start to grey at the edges, you figure you’re high enough. You release your physical body and instead put the full strength of your powers into sending the drone into orbit. You begin to fall, but the white robot rockets into the sky.
You watch with satisfaction as the drone tumbles through the sky on your homemade roller-coaster trajectory. Wiping your hands against one another, you mentally pat yourself on the back (which, for you, is not a metaphor), and turn to go.
But at the last second, the drone rights itself once more, and descends towards an unharmed landing.
“Oh, no you don’t, you little bastard!”
You blast yourself toward the drone with such energy that the tips of your shoes leave contrails in the sky. The drone goes down at full speed, trying to escape your wrath, but you easily pass over and arc down, grabbing the tiny machine once more.
Like a meteor coming in for impact, you race toward the earth. At the last possible second, you release the pull on yourself and instead slam someone’s hobby into the ground with all the force you can muster, just before bringing yourself to an abrupt hover.
With a sonic-boom, the drone blasts into the pavement, and its battery explodes in a miniature fireball, scorching the earth around the crater left behind by the composite body.
Fist-pump. Victory! With a grin you turn and fly back into the air, nearly running into a traffic helicopter. Whoa! A quick maneuver and you bank away, close enough to read K-HAN News. Jesus, the skies are getting too crowded! Your heart pounds out of your chest. How about you head back to the penthouse for a drink and some TV, and take your mind off things in a more conventional way?
• Sounds good to me. Go back to my casino suite to sleep it off.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Goodnight, Bloodnight
“You want to know my secret? I’m in control—of everything!” With rage boiling to the surface, you mentally grab the goons and crack their skulls together. The men stumble and release their grip on your ankles. Immediately, you plummet toward the bustling street below.
At first you’re mesmerized; the traffic grows larger with each passing moment, but it’s as if time has slowed. Like you’ve been falling far longer than seems possible. You close your eyes, letting only the sound and feel of the rushing air penetrate your mental calm.
Then the wind stops.
Like a bizarro Peter Pan, you fly back up to the penthouse, using the power of negative thoughts. When you make it to the balcony, Nelson Bloodnight and Su-Young stare in a daze of disbelief and terror.
Taking Bloodnight in your mental grasp, you lift him up. The man flails as he rises into the air, but at the same moment, you begin to fall. Your resolve falters and you focus on yourself once more. Bloodnight drops back on the balcony, and you fly again.
Looks like you can only concentrate on so much weight at once. Good to know.
Bloodnight gets up and runs back toward the penthouse, but in a blur of speed you arc over his head and land between him and the door. The casino boss blinks several times, then reaches inside his suit jacket and removes a nickel-plated handgun with a mother-of-pearl grip. That sly grin of his returns, if only for a moment.
With your feet planted firmly on the ground, you blast Nelson Bloodnight out into the sk
y with such force that he actually hits the next building over before falling to his death. His ten-gallon cowboy hat tumbles slowly over the balcony’s edge, but you grab it and settle it atop your head with the power of mind.
“There’s a new sheriff in town—and a new owner of the Planet Mercury Casino. Got a problem with that?”
“N-no, Sheriff,” Su-Young says, trembling.
• “I want champagne, strippers, and caviar up here—pronto.”
• “Good, let’s get down to business. Send up my head of security and whoever’s in charge of daily operations.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Grasping the Concept
“Hey, halfwit!” you call out. The pimp turns around, but when he sees you, his anger almost turns to amusement. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to bring a knife to a knife fight?”
He cocks his head and his expression changes to confusion. You pull the blade from his grasp with your mind, placing it in your hand. You smile, pleased with yourself. The pimp looks at his empty hand, then back to you.
“I don’t know how you did that, Bub, but it doesn’t matter. You just made a big mistake. The phrase is: You ain’t supposed to bring a knife to a gunfight.”
He shoves his hand inside his flowing jaguar print coat and out comes a revolver. The pimp takes aim.
He suddenly chokes, coughing up blood, and you see a knife handle sticking out of his throat. His knife. The knife you were holding. You told it to fly over there, you realize, and it did—at the speed of instinct.
His whore screams and click-clacks down the street on her high heels, fleeing from you as fast as she can. That was almost too easy, saving the day. Perhaps not in a goody-two-shoes manner, but could that be what Mercury City needs? A hero darker than its villains?
• That’s right, I make my own rules. If that makes others see me as a villain—so be it!
• No way, I’m the good guy! Killing that guy was just a slip-up. No one will know if I never tell….
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Hard to Believe
The world is eerily quiet. Not the soundless look-at-that-guy holding-in-his-guts quiet that Hollywood tells us comes after an explosion, but a calm, almost peaceful quiet. Like the explosion never happened. Sirens still scream in the distance, but it seems they must be headed somewhere else—as if nothing really happened here.
The other two subjects gasp, inhaling precious air as though an invisible strangler chose that exact moment to release their throats. They both rise to their feet and look around, trying to remember who and where they are, or barring that, at least what the hell just happened.
“Has anyone seen the scientist?” Nick asks, stepping off his own platform.
Catherine looks past the parking lot, down the road toward the oncoming sirens. Without looking back, she walks to her car in a daze. “My son,” she says. “I need to go pick up my son from school.”
Nick looks at you, but neither of you stop her from leaving. Instead, you walk toward the rubble. “Nick, let’s see if that guy, the uhhh…”
“Experi-mentor?” he suggests.
“Yeah, he could be injured.”
Something sticking out from under a large concrete slab catches your eye. Are those the goggles the scientist put on just before starting the experiment? He could be trapped under there!
“Help me with this,” you say. “On three.”
You squat down and grab the right half of the slab, waiting until Nick gets in position.
“One, two, three!” You brace yourself and lift with your legs to spare your back. The slab hurtles towards the ionosphere. Spinning like a top, the chunk of concrete debris rockets high and out of view. That felt as easy as tossing a pebble into a lake.
“Holy shit!” Nick shouts.
Unprepared for such an effortless move, you fall backwards under your own momentum. Nick reaches down to grab another piece of rubble to try his own strength, but it won’t budge. Must be 200 pounds at least. He gestures for you to give it a go and then steps away, granting you a wide berth. You grab the piece with one hand and lift as if you were simply palming a softball. Easy as picking up Styrofoam.
“That is…beyond amazing,” Nick says. “How the hell are you doing that?”
“Adrenaline?”
Nick laughs. It’s a flimsy answer, but what else could it be? You fling a few other boulder-size pieces away to reveal the goggles, but there’s no scientist beneath. No sign of the man whatsoever. The goggles have a shattered right lens but when you look for blood, mercifully there’s none.
“Can I see?” Nick asks.
You toss the goggles to him, much harder than intended, aimed perfectly at his face. You cringe at your own display of strength, not wanting to watch the goggles knock him out (or worse). But when you open your eyes, Nick has one arm outstretched and an intense look etched on his face.
The goggles float in mid-air, suspended just before his open hand. “Hole. Eee. Shit,” he says.
“Are you…?”
The goggles fly in a circle-eight pattern, drawing the symbol for infinity in the air. Nick laughs like a gleeful child. “It worked!” he cries. “That crackpot, he supercharged us, or whatever. It really worked!”
The sirens grow louder as the emergency response team approaches the site of the explosion.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Nick asks.
You say:
• “We should find the woman—Catherine. She might have powers too.”
• “We were just given rare gifts. Go now, and never speak of this again. Keep it secret, keep it safe.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Harsh Reality
“We can’t have others outside the program,” Droakam says, “You said so yourself, we must be the first.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t mean we should kill the others…”
“If you’re to be a warrior, you need to get used to the idea. Supersoldier! As in, living weapon. You could be the greatest arrow in the quiver of freedom!”
You sigh. There has to be another way. Maybe you can warn Nick, tell him to lay low, or even leave the country. Surely he’d go into hiding if he knew….
Droakam interrupts your thoughts. “Better you than someone else, right? Make it quick; painless. Then we get full funding and you can truly become our Captain America. Fight terrorists, protect freedom. Not everything is black and white, but you’re doing what’s in the best interest of your nation. We’re depending on you.”
“Okay, I’ll go find him,” you say.
But in your head, that voice says There has to be another way.
“Good. But don’t reveal the existence of the Supersoldier Program. Under no circumstances, got it?”
You nod.
• Go find Nick Dorian.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Heavy is the Head that Wears the Crown
Under the guise of a simple test (both of their abilities and of public reception), you convince the pair to rob a bank. Should you be worried at how easy it was? Nah. Does a marksman fear his rifle? As long as you’re the one at the trigger, they’ll aim true.
Now you sit atop the mountains of cash and watch news coverage of the robbery from the remote safety of the mine shaft. “This place sucks,” Nick says.
“Wait till you see what I do with it. I rigged up electricity and local television just while you were off chasing fortune and gl—”
“Shh, it’s on,” Catherine interrupts.
Reporter Alison Argyle delivers a live broadcast. She’s saying, “…the criminals known as ‘Drillbit’ and ‘Shadow Priestess’ have apparently formed a terrible alliance.”
The image turns to bank security camera feed. Everything is normal for a moment, then the wall explodes and Nick Dorian punches his way in. He wears the navy-blue uniform of a handyman and the cocksure smile of a young man enjoying himself.
Behind him, a woman in a flowing black cloak floats in—her alligator boots hover six inc
hes from the ground. The hood of the cloak obscures her face, but you can be certain you’re looking at Catherine Woodall. She puts out her hands, and in response the bank security guards point their handguns at their own heads.
The image on the wall flashes back to Ms. Argyle. “Police appear powerless against the criminal duo and now appeal to the federal government to send in troop support. This reporter has another appeal—to the third member of the experiment. If you’re out there, and you can help, this city desperately needs you.”
Your picture splashes up on the broadcast.
“Great, they know who we are!” Catherine cries.
“Will your son be okay?” you ask, recalling her initial reaction from the lab explosion.
“He’s at my parents’.”
You nod. “Then he’s fine.”
“Easy for you to say! What now? Going to dress up as a superhero and ‘defeat’ us?”
“That might not be a bad ruse…”
“Hell no,” Nick says. “My parents are going to be crushed. If we get dragged through the mud, so do you.”
“Hold on now, let’s weigh our options.”
Catherine shakes her head. “Kid’s right. We’re either in this together, or not at all.”
“Calm down a minute and think. If we play this right, we could all come out on top.”
“Yeah, well, either way, you’re gonna admit this whole thing was your idea,” Nick says.
“It’s not up for debate,” Catherine adds. “Just because we did this job, doesn’t mean we work for you.”
“Give me some time to look into it,” you say. “I’m sure we can spin this to our mutual benefit.”
“But you’ll do it? You swear?” Nick says.
• Swear to it, it was your idea. There’s got to be a good angle to play this, right? If you look hard enough, you’ll find a way.
SUPERPOWERED: Are YOU a Superhero or Supervillain? (Click Your Poison Book 3) Page 18