Evolution

by Hayden Thorne

  The good side to having über acute hearing was that I was easily warned. The bad side was that there was no way for me to know exactly how close they were. All the same, I sure as hell wasn’t going to stay around to know how good my sensing was. I rose and flew into one of the open warehouse doors, trusting to my cloaking powers’ ability to—ayup, cloak me—from the others’ sensory powers temporarily, at least.

  The warehouse was a mess of abandoned crap. There was no light, either, and I didn’t have the advantage of acute night vision.

  “Damn it,” I hissed, looking around me.

  Faint voices could be heard from outside somewhere, two male and one female. The superheroes were there. I needed to get out or face them all, one against three. Althea must be at home or at the Barlows’ or maybe even the police station, already hooked up to the computer.

  They gradually grew louder, and I could make out bits of the conversation.

  “Holy shit!” a young male voice—Peter’s, I recognized—exclaimed. “What the hell happened here?”

  Another male voice, Trent’s, obviously, said something I couldn’t hear clearly. A female voice joined in, sounding excited. I caught “a trap” and “an ambush” from her. There was a brief pause before I heard another exclamation from Peter. Wade spoke, and I heard her mention something about a “bicycle.” A hurried conversation followed, and I turned my attention away.

  Peter had seen my bike lying on the ground, just a few feet from the pile of mangled mannequins. I kept myself from bitterly laughing out loud. I quietly flew around the warehouse, taking care to avoid bumping against things. The voices continued behind me. Judging from their consistently low volume, I guessed they weren’t moving toward the warehouse. All the same, I didn’t want to take a chance.

  I spotted a window that was completely devoid of glass. Around it the other windows were either whole and caked with filth or broken in places, the openings not large enough for me to squeeze through. I immediately flew to the open one, relieved at the silence my powers gave my movements. Aiming well, I shot through the hole…

  …and immediately thumped hard against a wall of solid muscle, a breathless “Oof!” puffing out of me.

  Hands, large, strong, and very familiar, grabbed my jacket and yanked me up till I half-hung, half-floated outside the warehouse, staring right into Magnifiman’s narrowed eyes.

  “I’ve got you now, you little pipsqueak,” he snarled. “It’s curtains for you and your devious—”

  He stopped, confusion momentarily shadowing his perfect, chiseled features.

  There was no turning back now. Whatever Brenda had said about choices and free will being a part of my experiences as an “Olympia,” sure didn’t apply to me. I was manipulated into becoming something, and what I did when my powers were on felt like it had nothing to do with free will. Action-reaction. Anger—there was so much of it boiling in me, feeding my powers.

  I went for broke.

  “What’s up?” I said, smirking at the shock that now registered on Magnifiman’s face.

  “You!” he cried.

  “Surprise!”

  We were all newbies at this, I suppose. Magnifiman let his guard down for a few seconds—not very smart—and I took advantage of it. I focused—concentrated—used up as much reserve as I could. The red and yellow of my world brightened, brightened, brightened, till I was sure I was going to be blinded. Heat from the deepest pit in my belly flared and coursed out.

  There was a flash—a massive, painful explosion of energy—and I was torn from Magnifiman’s grip, tumbling in space backward, while he was thrown in the opposite direction.

  Chapter 20

  That sure wasn’t a good way to treat one’s kinda-sorta-brother-in-law, but then again, there was no hard and fast rules involving one’s kinda-sorta-ex-brother-in-law. The energy blast knocked me well out of Magnifiman’s reach, and though I was dizzy from all the tumbling, something in me held fast, kept me from losing all my focus despite my crazy situation.

  Somehow, while rolling in space, I managed to take advantage of the momentum caused by my energy wave and used it to catapult myself farther away from the warehouse.

  I really didn’t know where I was going. I was only aware of losing all sense of direction, completely unclear as to whether or not I was upright or not, and whether or not I was flying up or falling down. I just felt this frightening and uncontrollable forward push, with my body instinctively positioning itself as I rode the last wave of energy that was taking me away from Magnifiman. I guess it was like body surfing in warm, rolling air. Maybe it was all instinct and self-preservation completely taking over.

  “There!” someone shouted somewhere.

  I forced my eyes open and found myself sailing clear above another warehouse. I was flying for real. I glanced over my shoulder and caught sight of a fiery streak following me.

  “Great,” I hissed. “Wade.”

  I made a sharp turn when the sound of Wade’s flight grew more distinct: the whoosh of air around her, the crackling of fire as she channeled her powers. Bearing left, I made for a giant billboard that was perched atop one dilapidated building. The billboard was really nothing more than a rusty rectangular steel frame with a discolored and tattered vinyl sheet flapping weakly in the breeze. I took my place on it, turning around to face my approaching enemy. Balancing on that steel frame as it groaned and moved under my weight was a cakewalk. My powers and my quick mastery of them continued to amaze me.

  “Go on!” I called out, raising my arms from my sides like before as the energy surged from the pit of my stomach through every inch of my body till I felt like a dam that had just been riddled with holes. “Let’s see what you got!”

  Wade stopped and hovered in space, the fire that initially covered her vanishing. She faced me with a look of intense concentration mixed with anger. Without taking her eyes off me, she raised one arm and extended it, her fire whip bursting out of her palm and shooting out like a fiery tentacle. Within seconds, she’d closed her fingers around its handle. It hung in space, waiting to be used. Fire ran along the length of the weapon.

  For a moment, we challenged each other in a battle of wills of kinds. Like a staring contest, waiting for the first one to blink.

  “You’re not getting away this time,” she called out, finally. Her voice was light and very girly, the kind of voice that one might expect to hear from a young, shy bookworm type. It was a voice that didn’t evoke a lot of strength, but I knew better than to underestimate her, given who’d mentored her, and continued to mentor her, for that matter.

  “So where’s your boyfriend?” I asked, my heart racing, the bile in my stomach surging at every word. “Abandoned you, did he?”

  She grinned, not once contradicting me. Wade had definitely improved by way of confidence since I last saw her. I could sense a kind of hunger there, an eagerness to break me where I stood.

  In fact, I even caught sight of her fingers working on the handle of her fire whip, loosening and tightening around it as if she were kneading, but it definitely spoke volumes of her holding herself in check for the moment. It was like watching a spring compacting itself in a tight coil, ready for a sudden, violent release.

  I braced myself, matching her will for will. My heart continued to thunder against my ribs.

  “Calais has better things to do than stay around for you.”

  “So he left you to deal with garbage, eh? Not exactly a very equal relationship.”

  Wade swung her arm, snapping her fire whip with a loud cry. I instinctively raised an arm to ward off the blow, and my energy cloak softened it—slowed it down. The whip’s end cut into the thick warmth and coiled around my arm. Its momentum and impact reduced, it uncoiled in a second and slipped off just as Wade yanked it back.

  The fire whip flew out, trailing fire in the air as it snapped back without me attached to it.

  Wade let out a gasp of anger. With her free hand, she aimed and shot me a series of fireb
alls—about a dozen at least in rapid succession. I could hear the rhythmic Choom! Choom! that followed them. I countered her attack with an energy blast. It tore through the air in a high speed beam, colliding with Wade’s fireballs midway and setting off brilliant explosions of energy and flames between us.

  I followed that with another blast, taking advantage of the momentary confusion caused by the explosions. Wade managed to leap out of the way, though, and my energy blast tore into a pile of old crates on the warehouse’s roof that was behind her.

  “Not bad for garbage!” she cried, snapping her whip as she flew up, this time aiming for my feet. She missed them, but her whip coiled around the steel frame I stood on, heating it within seconds. The rusty frame turned red and began to smoke. I flew up before I got roasted, refocusing my powers, feeding off my resentment toward Wade. Before she could snap her whip back, I let loose one more energy wave. It shot through the air in a violent rippling current. She saw it, tried to leap out of the way, but was caught in its flow and carried off. I watched it throw her against a collection of old steel drums that sat rotting on another warehouse’s roof. She crashed against them with a shout as drums flew all over.

  “Yeah, not bad for garbage, huh?” I sneered.

  “You there!”

  I turned and saw Magnifiman hovering just to my right. He raised both hands out to me. Heat in my belly churned again, pulsing and growing, readying itself for the next volley.

  “You don’t have to do this!” he cried. “Listen to me—you’re not one of us!”

  “No, I never was. I never will be,” I snarled.

  “No one wants to hurt you.”

  “Seriously? Gee, how ironic,” I spat. Hurt me? He’d no idea. Seriously absolutely no idea. “Spare me any speeches about justice and peace and equality and all that junk, either. Whatever you tell me has been programmed into you. You’re hardwired into talking like a comic book character, and I’ll bet you don’t mean a word you say.”

  He ignored me, and I could see his body tensing up, readying itself, even though his voice stayed calm and steady. “Listen. You’re a good kid. I know you are. Let me help you. Let us help you and bring whoever did this to you to justice.”

  I sprang back, leaping across the way and onto the next rooftop when Magnifiman suddenly flew at me. His arms embraced air as he sailed over where I’d stood a second earlier. Close behind him flew Wade, her fire whip gone, but she’d flared up again, her body outlined by fire. She took her place beside Magnifiman and faced me, this time poised for action with her fists raised at her sides. I don’t want to admit this, but she looked absolutely breathtaking like that, and I hated her even more for it. A strong girl. A very smart one, according to Peter, nice and sweet behind all that power. She was also straighter than a straight line. I couldn’t even begin to imagine all the things she could offer to any family who’d take her into the fold. Together, they might work their influence on Peter and coax him into a closeted future that was completely free of me and all the economic, intellectual, and identity baggage that came with my miserable four-eyed self. All those reassurances Peter kept feeding me—“Don’t worry this, don’t worry that, blah, blah, blah”—who the hell was he trying to bullshit?

  “Too late for that,” I yelled. It was all too much for me to deal with. I was close to breaking down again. “Too late for anything! I warned you all before. No one listened. Hell, no one believed me! Chalk my nightmares up to post-traumatic stress, right? My head wasn’t raped, right? The only thing the Trill did was to screw around with me and make me believe I was programmed to follow instructions. Pretty easy explanation, wasn’t it?”

  Where the hell was Peter? He should be there, watching me, seeing his own handiwork. Yeah, I blamed him. He was the one who fed me all the crap about trauma and the Trill being no better than they were, being a bumbling newbie like everyone else. What bull it turned out to be. This was Peter’s fault. All his fault. It could’ve been stopped a long time ago, with proper help, considering the technology the superheroes had access to.

  But no. The Devil’s Trill was a newbie, he said. The Devil’s Trill couldn’t possibly reach inside my head and plant himself there, he said. No way, he said. No way.

  “So what do you want?” Wade called out. “You want to be hurt? Is that it?”

  “Hurt? Hurt?” I laughed. “What the hell do you know about me, anyway?”

  “More than you know,” she returned.

  “Yeah, I’ll fucking bet you do.”

  “Enough of this,” Magnifiman cut in. He launched himself at me.

  Heat and thick, asphyxiating air flared up around me. “Yeah, enough of this,” I ground out. Red and yellow intensified, brightened. All I could make out were vague silhouettes of Magnifiman flying toward me, with Wade at his side. The silhouettes melted in the spiraling whiteness that suddenly blinded me, and I shouted as hot energy exploded from my body—a cloud of distortion and swirling colors and pent-up rage.

  I couldn’t see Magnifiman and Wade as they flew right into the massive cloud. I didn’t think they’d be completely damaged by it, but I knew I’d just bought myself enough time to escape.

  I turned and flew off the roof, spent and in pain from the violence of my efforts. I took the direction of the asylum, the fury that had just found release still eating away at me as I landed on one rooftop after another. I glowed as I went. A glance or two at my limbs and my clothes showed that I was physically pulsing with energy from deep within. I must look like a white ball that bounced off the tops of buildings. In the process of escape, I sent volley after volley of waves, all randomly directed. Windows blew in, bricks exploded from the walls of tenements, grimy light bulbs on billboards or street lamps burst in a shower of broken glass. Junk collected on abandoned rooftops flew out and disappeared into the streets. Here and there I could hear people shouting as debris rained on them below.

  I expected to be caught by Magnifiman at any time, but I didn’t hear anyone pursuing me. All right, then, was I being saved for someone else?

  I paused at one point, catching my breath as I crouched on the roof of a terraced house in a familiar street. I shook like crazy under the strain of seriously jacked up emotions and powers, panting as I watched an old house across the street from where I’d perched myself.

  My bedroom window was thrown open. The light was on, and I could see a part of my bed. Farther down, the light was also turned on in my parents’ bedroom. They were all home now, and I imagined how they were going about their business behind those weathered brick walls—what they talked about, where they gathered, the tone of their voices as they wondered about me. I should’ve been home a long time ago.

  “I’m here, Mom, Dad. Across the street. Just look out the window, and you’ll see me.”

  A silhouette moved past the window on the bottom floor, next to the front door. Someone was in the living room, probably watching the news. Probably using the phone. I forced myself to look away, a small sound escaping my tight throat, and I reminded myself of what I needed to do.

  The asylum was at the other end of the city, I told myself. There was no time for anything else. I flew off, managing to clear three more rooftops.

  Then I hit something, or something hit me. The world spun, melted in a streak of confused colors and shapes. My stomach lurched as the city sped past me, and I clung to the arms that held me tight.

  I fought and clawed my way back to some semblance of control and mustered as much energy as I could despite my weakening hold. I pinched my eyes shut, bent all thought on the swirling heat that continued to radiate from my belly.

  “Get the hell off me!” I shrieked as I let loose a torrent of energy. I felt the arms around me slacken their hold, but they didn’t let me go. The speed of our flight weakened, though, and the dizziness and nausea vanished. I took a moment to gather myself before struggling furiously.

  I felt us descend and then crash against something wooden. Stars exploded before my eyes, and
I felt jolts of pain up and down my body. My energy cloak failed to cushion our fall adequately, and I cursed myself for letting out such a weak surge. We rolled among piles of junk and came to a stop amid battered crates and boxes.

  I lay on my back, panting. I opened my eyes and met Peter’s gaze as he held me down with his weight.

  “Eric,” he breathed. I could barely hear him. “My God, what happened to you?”

  “A lot of things,” I whispered back. “Good thing you broke up with me, huh?”

  Peter visibly winced. “I want to help you. Trust me…”

  “Again?” I snapped. The heat in me rose. “The way I trusted you when you said nothing was wrong with my head after the Trill got me?”

  “Listen, Eric, please. You’re not hardwired like me. What you have can be reversed.”

  “Oh, you mean you’ve figured everything out already? Just like that? Boy, I’m impressed. You did better with me than with the Puppet.”

  Somehow I’d managed to yank one of my arms free of his hold. Then I hauled and punched him hard on the jaw, sending him toppling off me. I stumbled to my feet despite the soreness all over my body and the exhaustion that was steadily growing. The good thing about fighting someone one used to be romantically involved with was that one could take advantage of any soft spots his ex-turned-enemy might still harbor for him.

  I stood several feet away and re-energized while Peter stumbled to his feet. He turned to me, and I saw a reddish mark forming on his jaw. I thought he wouldn’t be susceptible to physical bruising given his powers, but apparently I was wrong. Then again, maybe it was a sign we were evenly matched, and that gave me hope.

  “What the hell do you care, anyway?” I demanded.

  “Why do I need to justify myself to you?”

  I laughed. “Oh, that’s precious. After what you said to me this morning? Yeah—real precious.”