“It’s okay, Blake, you’re safe,” Dr. Madison’s soothing voice said. “You boys can back off, guys. He’s on our side.”
He sat up, becoming keenly aware of his shirtless and pantless state. Someone allowed him the dignity of keeping his blue boxer briefs on. A number of electrodes had been attached to his chest, arms, legs, and head.
“What the…what’s going on?”
“Sorry, I needed to take some tests to see why your body reacted differently to the taser voltage. It looks like only one taser connected with you; it might explain why you’re awake so fast.”
“How long have I been out? Apparently, long enough for someone to strip me?”
Dr. Madison chucked. “About half-an-hour. Sorry about that, the leads need to be attached directly to your skin.”
“I’m even sorrier,” Arik said, waving. He and Miguel sat at other workstations nearby.
“You boys can stand down,” Dr. Madison said to the guards. They backed away and took up positions near the door. Two of them kept their tasers in-hand while the other two holstered the nasty stun guns.
“You said I reacted differently, what do you mean?” Blake asked, scratching his head. He noticed his clothes were folded on a side table nearby.
“The last time Mother Superior’s guards tased you, you exploded with energy—just like when we resuscitated you. That did not happen this time.
“Huh.” Blake rolled his head to the left and tilted his head to the sides, cracking and stretching his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a nearly nude man suspended from floor to ceiling.
No, that can’t be.
Blake turned to the left and his mouth fell agape.
Oh my gosh, Quinn!
“What the hell are you doing to him?” Blake asked, frustrated. You never told me about this part!
A horizontal steel bar he hadn’t seen before extended downward from the ceiling. Two short lengths of steel chain hung from the bar, locking into wrist cuffs that suspended an unconscious Quinn in the middle of the work room. Like Blake, someone had stripped his clothes but left his red trunks on. A number of leads and electrodes were stuck to his skin. His ankles were also shackled to the floor with more chain while an electrical wire—the kind Blake had seen in the walls of his house—had been stripped and split so the white wire went to the shackle on Quinn’s left ankle, and the black wire to the right one. The other end of the wire went to a make-shift dial switch that plugged into the wall.
“Now, now, Blake,” Mother Superior said, stepping into the light. “You can’t blame us for taking precautions with the Prime, can you? The last thing I need is your friend waking up and destroying my facility. I hear he’s very difficult to stop.”
“Are you hurting him?” Blake asked, his voice softened.
“Of course not. We’re only running a low voltage current through his body. It’s just enough to keep his powers at bay so he can’t do anything we don’t want.”
Shit, did I inadvertently help them find our weakness? Wait, what did she call him?
“Why did you call him the Prime?”
She walked toward him, her voice arrogant and light. “Isn’t it obvious, Blake? The Prime is the first of a new thing. Although you were created together, you seemingly have not been created equally, but in two parts. The Prime, or Quinn, even though only by a nanosecond, was created first. We cannot fully understand what happened to you until we study you together, as a whole. So, unless you always want to be the second, I suggest you trust our efforts and allow us to study what we need to study.
The door slid open and Victor stepped into the room.
“You lied to me!” Blake said, playing his part in Victor’s grand plan. He tried to jump off the table, but some of the leads tightened against him and held him fast. When he tried to pull them off, Mother Superior tapped a control on the desk in front of her. A pulse of electricity stunned him and knocked him backward.
“Really?” Victor said, vexed with his boss. “Turn that thing off.”
“Absolutely not. We’ve all seen what happens when this young man becomes angry. He’s a wild beast that needs to be tamed, and I will be the one to do so.”
Victor walked over to Blake and offered to help him stand, but Blake dismissed him. “Fuck off.”
“I’m sorry, Blake. I had to follow orders. I wouldn’t have done this on my own. Things have…changed within The Order. You have to understand; the organization’s priorities have shifted quite a bit.”
“All thanks to you and the Prime,” Mother Superior added, a smug tone in her voice. “And now we have you both.”
“Am I your prisoner?” Blake asked.
“Of course not, Blake,” Mother Superior said with a sickeningly sweet tone.
“If I’m not your prisoner, then why do you keep trying to control me like this?”
“We can’t have our creations turning against us, can we? You simply need to be…trained…to respect authority. You signed up for this when you joined The Order. Unless you’re changing your mind…in that case, there’s always more chain. I’ll gladly have the guards string you up next to your friend. There’s room for two on that bar.” She pointed to the steel rod Quinn’s wrist restraints were attached to. “Which will it be?” She reached her hand out to the electrical control box on the desk in front of her.
“We’re good,” Blake said quickly, relaxing. All I have to do is wait for the right moment. Shit, Quinn is gonna be so pissed off at me.
“Very good. Do you have a damage report for me, Abbot?” Mother Superior said, turning her attention to Victor. “Yes. We assessed the damage the boys did in the reactor core. Other than drain it again, they managed to rearrange most of the focusing tiles. No damage to report.”
Mother Superior laughed. “What did you think that would do, Blake?”
Blake shrugged. “Blow it up the next time you tried to use it. You can’t be allowed to make more of us because you, most of all, don’t need an army of super-powered people under your control. You'll completely change the planet as we know it.”
“Aww, isn’t he adorable, Victor?” Mother Superior commented, lightly clapping her hands. Victor looked at the floor, avoiding eye contact with Blake. Not yet…he doesn’t want me to do anything yet.
Mother Superior chortled and her eyes opened wide as a thought formed in her mind. “Did you think the tiles in the reactor core were special or placed with exacting precision? I admire your creative approach, but please, they all do the same thing no matter where they are.”
Blake frowned.
“You did, didn’t you?” Mother Superior sneered at him, then smiled with devious satisfaction. “It was I who engineered and orchestrated this elaborate ruse—a design with a singular goal in mind; to bring Quinn to us willingly. Victor played his part, and now you have played yours. Don’t think you can ever outsmart us Blake, you’re just the dumb kid who fell for the well written lies, like you always will. Now, we have you both.”
“You freaking…” Blake grimaced and collapsed onto the table as Mother Superior zapped him again, a wicked smile spread across her face.
2-25 | Collusion
Quinn
QUINN HEARD THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION, observing the room with his super hearing and catching brief glimpses when he cracked his eyes open. He figured out that Mother Superior believed electricity subdued both of them, but that wasn’t the case for Quinn because he could manipulate and harness electricity except when surprised. Now that he was in direct contact with the facility’s power grid, he could bring the whole place down in seconds if he wanted to.
Where the hell did we go wrong? From the minute Blake told me he was secretly meeting with Victor, I should have been more vigilant about asking what they were talking about. It should have been obvious that Blake would fall prey to Victor’s big brother attitude and fall in line with the promises of a better life and a chance to get away from his parents. How did I not see this coming? Even now, if Victor
apologizes and plays dumb, Blake will still feel indebted to him for paying off his hospital bills. Something tells me there’s a much deeper set of plans in motion when it comes to The Order and our abilities. How do I get Blake to question Victor, or are we destined to lose our friendship?
Quinn sensed the electrical current shift in the room when Mother Superior zapped Blake. At the moment, she kept an incapacitating charge running through his friend. It had to hurt, but Quinn needed to learn more about why they had gone through such great lengths to capture him. I can use that to my advantage when the time is right. Sorry, buddy, but you’re going to have to take a little more of that for a bit. Might as well let you get the full experience of The Order, right?
“How soon until their implants are ready?” Mother Superior asked.
“We’re almost finished,” Dr. Madison announced, “They should be ready within the hour.”
“Excellent. Have you accounted for their impenetrable skin?”
Quinn cracked open his eyes and watched as Dr. Madison picked up a small object from her workstation. His super vision revealed it wasn’t much bigger than an Aspirin tablet.
“Yes, I developed a micro-delivery system via the ear canal. This is the second prototype.” She held the gray metal device in the palm of her hand for Mother Superior to inspect.
“Does it work like the first?”
She nodded. “There was too much variability in the first model since it was rushed, so I’m still not sure if it anchored or not. However, this one will be much more efficient. I got the idea from watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the scene with the Ceti eels.”
“I’m not familiar with it,” Mother Superior responded flatly.
“Ah, well, to make a long story short, these fictitious eels crawl into a human being via the ear canal and attach themselves to the cerebral cortex, making the subject highly susceptible to suggestion.”
“That's both disgusting and brilliant.”
“Indeed. Although we’re still improving the suggestive or mind control functionality, I can deliver the implant via this micro bug device. It has tiny legs similar to an insect that will allow it to burrow through the tympanic membrane and follow the otic nerve to the subject’s brain stem, where it will attach itself via a small anchor. Once it’s in place, there’s no getting it out—especially since these two can’t be operated on by conventional means.”
These people are insane. They have to be stopped, no matter what!
“You have one for each of them?” Mother Superior asked.
“Of course. If this proves successful, I plan to do the same with the other test subjects. It will be much easier and far less costly than surgery. It will, however, be uncomfortable for the subjects should they regain consciousness, at least until the device has implanted itself.”
“Very well. Please proceed.”
I’ve heard enough of their crap. Time to get out of here and finish what we started. He focused and diverted the electricity away from the electrodes on Blake’s body. Blake briefly shuddered on the table. Quinn anticipated he would need a moment to recover.
“I don’t know about you, Blake, but I can’t stand it when the bad guys stand around and talk and talk and talk. It’s so freaking annoying, like there’s nothing more important than the sound of their own voice spouting evil garbage.”
“Increase the voltage on the Prime!” Mother Superior barked, pointing at Quinn.
“By all means, if it makes you feel better, go ahead,” Quinn responded, chuckling.
A technician—someone he recognized from their unplanned hospital stay several weeks back—cranked the voltage knob. Quinn put on a little show and created arcs of electricity that snapped over his body and cascaded from the chains at his wrists to the chains at his ankles and the metal floor.
“Ooh, that tickles,” Quinn said, laughing. Then, hovering, his eyes glowed blue and he pulled his arms down, snapping the chains and his wrist cuffs. A moment later, he pulled his knees up and snapped the ankle cuffs, electricity still dancing over his body. He hovered in the air for a moment before landing on the floor.
“Kidnapping a minor? That's not going to look good on your criminal record.”
“Taser him!” Mother Superior yelled.
Several guards reacted, drew their tasers, and fired. The charged electrodes flew through the air and found their mark on Quinn’s torso.
Quinn let the voltage cascade over his body without a second thought. “You know, if you're going to capture a super-powered person, you should try to understand the true nature of their powers and not make bad assumptions about their weaknesses.” He grabbed the taser wires and reversed the current, stunning the guards who held the tasers. Their bodies tensed and convulsed, then fell to the floor as Quinn released the electrical current that immobilized them.
“Oh dear,” Dr. Madison said, stepping back behind her desk.
Quinn pulled the electrodes off his body and held them in his left hand as Mother Superior backed away and shouted orders into a radio. He looked at Victor, who stepped back, raised his hands in surrender, and smirked. He’s so weird. Whose side is he on, anyway? His own? I bet he wants to get his boss out of the way so he can take over…
Blake sat up with a start, recovered from the zapping Mother Superior had given him. He looked around to see what was going on.
“Nice of you to join us,” Quinn said, teasing his friend.
“Yeah, sorry, that electric shit stings,” Blake said, shaking his head and slapping his face.
Drawing from the electrical current he sensed in the electrodes in his left hand, Quinn reached out with his right hand and blasted Dr. Madison’s workstation. “There’s no way I’m going to let you make that nasty bug thing work, ever.”
“No!” Dr. Madison shrieked, stepping forward then back again, watching in horror as her console spit sparks and black smoke into the room.
A number of guards burst through the open door and aimed semi-automatic assault rifles at them.
“I’ve got this,” Blake said, pushing himself up from the table. Quinn watched as he clapped his hands together. On the other side of the room, the guards pulled together hard and fast into a pile. Then, they slumped to the floor as their weapons flew across the room and clattered against the far wall and fell to the floor. Blake grabbed his pants from the nearby table and stepped into them.
“Where are the rest of those things?” Quinn shouted at Dr. Madison, pointing his hand at her. Dropping the wires in his left hand, he took several menacing steps toward her.
Her eyes subconsciously shifted to the right, betraying her. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Well, you just did, so thank you.”
Mother Superior’s high heels click-clacked across the floor behind him as Quinn walked toward a storage unit on a counter. It resembled a futuristic metal and glass box, complete with bright white lighting on the inside. Quinn studied its neatly arranged trays, each one holding twelve of the nasty pill-sized critters.
“What are those?” Blake asked, hurriedly sliding his feet into his socks and shoes.
Quinn raised his hand, ready to blast them with electricity. “These are the micro bug implants they were talking about while you were napping. They go in through the ear and stick to the brain stem. That’s what they were going to use on us since they can’t cut us with scalpels.”
“Gross.”
“Please don’t, that’s months of research and refinement that we can’t lose,” Dr Madison pleaded.
Blam!
Gunfire rang out and a bullet struck Quinn in the back, delivering an electrical shock accompanied by searing hot pain though his torso. Quinn grunted and struggled to stay on his feet. What kind of bullets are these?
Blam!
I think an electrical shock momentarily weakens me, but it doesn’t knock me out like it does Blake. A shock might briefly weaken me, which explains why the taser darts can stick in my skin. That explains why these shoc
k bullets hurt like hell but don’t take me down. If they were to perfect the bullet, who knows…
“Did you really think you would be able to stop us?” Mother Superior shouted. Quinn projected a shield to prevent the bullets from striking his flesh. He turned around to see Mother Superior pointing a handgun at him.
Blam!
“Did you think I’d let you come this far without consequences?”
Blam!
“Since you first wandered into the reactor? We’ve watched you from the beginning, young fools.”
What? How long have you known about us?
❖
Blake
Blake frowned and stared at Mother Superior. “I’ve had enough of you today.”
She swung the handgun at him and fired several shots, but he caught the sparking bullets with his mind, stopping them inches away from his body. He studied them for a moment before letting them fall to the floor. They appeared to carry an electrical charge that would have stunned him like the tasers did.
“Well, he’s finally learned how to stop bullets,” Mother Superior said, cackling with glee. “The more you can do, the stronger The Order will become.”
Blake shook his head, ripped the hand gun from her hands with his mind, and tossed it behind him.
“You have become such a promising and powerful ally, Blake.”
“What do you mean, from the beginning?” Quinn asked about her previous statement, stepping away from the dangerous micro bugs.
Blake narrowed his eyes and studied her, then looked at Victor with angry eyes. How much did you leave out the other day?
“I’m sorry, Blake, I could only tell you so much,” Victor said, seemingly knowing what Mother Superior was about to say.
She stepped in front of Victor and waved her hand dismissively to silence him.
“From the beginning means from the beginning, Quinn, or do you need a lesson in the English language?” Mother Superior sniped. Blake knew she believed she still held the upper hand, but it was clear she had no idea her world was about to fall apart.
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