by Andrew Peed
All of the men began to reload at the same exact moment.
Ronnie pushed me back and put his hands together. Lightening started to arch between them forming a ball of energy. He threw the ball at one of the men surrounding us, but before it made contact, the leader of the group appeared in front of the energy ball in a blur. He absorbed the blast. He then increased the size of the energy ball and threw it back at Ronnie.
Ronnie tried to jump out of the way but he wasn’t fast enough. The ball of energy crashed into his side sending him skidding across the grass. Every muscle in his body was contracting at the same time.
"Hmm... I haven’t met another Electrokinetic with this much power since I killed the last one." the man laughed, "but I have more."
"What did you do to him?" I yelled as Ronnie groaned on the ground.
"Resume firing!” he ordered his troops.
The bullets began to rain again.
I turned to look at Rachel. She was trying not to drop to her knees and slowly her eyes were starting to bleed. The force field began to shrink quickly.
"I don't know how long she can keep this up." Kenny and Sandy were helping Rachel stay on her feet.
A flash of bright blue light blinded us from the sky. Four people appeared from nothing between us and the Aurora Soldiers.
"Vanish, get ready for the return trip. Hothead and Silence take out the Sabers." One of the men ordered.
Silence moved in a blur cutting through the Sabers. Hothead had taken out two massive blades and began cutting down the Sabers in a blind furry. Quickly the enemy soldiers fell and before long only the leader stood chuckling.
"Sam it's been too long." the leader said.
“Richard, it seems that you have moved up in the ranks.” Sam, the man leading the newly arrived group yelled at the leader of the Aurora soldiers.
“Funny you should call me that. It’s not my name anymore. Call me Jolt.”
"Who the hell are you?" I yelled. I was completely lost in the situation with no idea of what to do.
"I'm a friend." Sam said.
Jolt began to laugh as Silence and Hothead finished taking out the Sabers.
"What is so funny?" Silence yelled.
"These Sabers have had an upgrade. Something new the doctors have cooked up, over active production of a supercharged adrenaline. They won’t be stopped that easily.” Jolt held up the head of one of the downed Sabers. They all started to get up off the ground.
"That's definitely something new." Sam started to show a little nervousness.
I ran over to Rachel who let the force field fall. She was on her knees holding her head in her hands, "if you want to help, now would be a good time."
Silence and Hothead were thrust right back into fighting off the wild Sabers. The Sabers moved faster and were predicting their movements.
Silence was grabbed around the neck and tossed like a rag doll. Hothead swept the legs out from under the Saber, his torso falling to the ground, but it didn’t stop. The torso pulled itself across the ground with its arms to attack Hothead’s legs. Two other Sabers jumped onto Hothead’s back and wrestled him to the ground.
"I think it's time to go, Vanish." Sam said.
"I'm not ready yet." She rubbed her hands together.
"Well you need to get ready. Hothead, Silence, time to wrap things up." Sam yelled to the two fighting the crowd of soldiers who kept standing back up after getting knocked down.
Hothead stood with all of the Sabers on his back. He got a hold of one of his blades and swung it blindly. He took out most of them that clung onto his back. Silence slipped out and reappeared behind Sam.
I stood there helplessly frozen with fear, unable to act. I tried to tap into the power that I had used to break us free, but I couldn't find it. Not only that, I couldn't find any power at all.
I was useless.
Hothead grabbed the leg of one of the soldiers and stepped on his head, then used him as a sort of bowling ball chucking the limp body to knock down the others around him. He stormed back where we all stood.
The same bright blue light filled the air and the ground left my feet. All I could see was blue, I could feel everyone around me, but I couldn't see any of them. I couldn't see anything.
The ground was soft and cold.
"Where are we?" I looked around in darkness.
"Alaska." Sam’s voice came from my left, "Everyone ok? Silence, Hothead, Vanish?" He dug through his pockets.
"Hey guys, there's something wrong with Vanish." Silence stood beside where the girl laid on the ground, red snow surrounding her body.
"LIZ!" Hothead yelled running to her, knocking silence out of his path and skidding to a stop on his knees beside where she lay.
"Hothead remember your training." Sam held a cell phone to his ear. He rushed to her side as well, but wasn't quite as panicked as Hothead, "We're back. Send a truck, and prep a med team." He put the phone back into his pocket and knelt down beside the girl's head. He looked at her face tilting her head side to side very gently.
"Sam?" Hothead growled at him.
"The blood is coming from her eyes and mouth. It has to be from overuse of her abilities. She should be alright Hothead." Sam explained, "Are the rest of you alright?" He asked looking at me, then looking to the rest of the group.
I checked everyone and we were all alive, very shaken but fine all the same. Ronnie was up and moving around slowly. Rachel was wiping blood from her face with the sleeve of her shirt.
A large vehicle with tracks instead of wheels came barreling over a nearby hill of snow. We carefully lifted Vanish into the back of the truck and the rest of us piled in around her. We sat on cold metal seats that were around the edge of the inside of the back of the vehicle.
"So which one of you is the tier six?" Silence glanced around at us.
"What do you mean?" I was sitting directly across from him. I couldn't read his expression because his face was covered. I was suddenly aware that it was freezing and the back of the truck was open.
"When you use your abilities you give off kinetic brain waves, they can be measured in levels based on how powerful the abilities are. We got a hit in Las Vegas that registered as a six, and that's rare." he was extremely excited.
"Silence, you need to keep quiet until they have been debriefed, we have rules for a reason." Sam chimed in from the front of the truck.
"Yes, Sir." Silence hung his head.
No one spoke as the vehicle heaved up and down over the dunes of snow that went on forever in every direction. As we came close to a building that was tucked into the side of one of the dunes, a garage door opened spilling light onto the white ground. The driver pulled into the doorway and the door closed behind us.
Vanish was rushed off on a stretcher and we were shown into a sitting room.
A strange rush came over us as we all sat uncomfortably. Ronnie sat next to me, having trouble keeping his eyes open. He let his head fall back on the couch. I felt his irregular breaths turn into a more steady rhythm as he leaned against me on the small couch.
Sam walked into the room and clapped his hands together, "Here in a minute we are going to begin debriefing you all. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I am obligated to not answer any of them until after the debriefing has finished." he explained. We all wanted answers, but we were tired from what had gone down and tired of getting pulled around.
"Grace, do you want to go first?"
"Sure, why not." I stood and followed him out of the room.
Sam showed me out into the hallway and to a room labeled “Debriefing.” He opened the door to a small room with a bay window the size of the outer wall.
There were two chairs looking out of a bay window, "Have a seat." Sam said pointing to one of the chairs.
A fire burned in a fire place on the wall opposite side of the room.
I sat down.
"So I will make this as quick as possible." He picked up a tablet computer that was resting in hi
s chair and began to fill in some information, "So how long were you inside of the Aurora facility?"
"We checked the date a few hours after our escape. Best we can tell we were there for around thirty or so days." I rubbed my face feeling a head ache coming on, "Events shortly after we were taken is a little fuzzy. It's all a little fuzzy."
"What is your ability?" He wasn’t typing, but allowing the computer to do the typing.
I wasn’t sure how to describe the ability so I just held out my hand and snapped my fingers making a flame about the size of a lighter’s flame hovered over my skin.
"PyroKinetics, we have only found one other with that ability." Sam said, "And were you the person that caused the explosion at the facility?"
"I was the explosion." I shifted in my seat and let the flame die.
"Alright, well I think that is about all I need for now." he looked over the computer screen.
"What was it that you were calling each other?" I asked.
"We have call-signs, if the public were to overhear us speaking for any reason, they will only have our nicknames. One of our founders came up with the idea from old comic books and it stuck." Sam put the computer on the floor next to his chair.
"Why did you get upset when Hothead said Liz’s name once we reappeared?"
"It is a layer of defense we use. They have to follow the rules regardless of present company. Every person has to be cleared.”
"That word you used mod? What does that mean?" I wanted to understand this new world that I had become a part of.
"It's short for modification. That is what we refer to someone who was modified from their original DNA makeup in order to gain any number of abilities. Nat's, or naturals, are people who gain their abilities naturally, and Reg's are normal people." he scratched his head, "You'll learn as you go along."
“You recorded the Tier six spike at Las Vegas, how did you know we had gone to the orphanage?”
“Shortly after the spike, we were contacted by a shadow agent, someone we’ve smuggled within Aurora, that there were new recruits. We started scanning for unregistered users, when Ronnie performed his first attack we honed in and Vanish took us there.” He explained like it was standard daily activity.
"My head is killing me." I rubbed my eyes that began to burn from the stress.
Chapter 9: Eastcroft
Sam and I returned to the waiting room. He took Kenny next. I assured him that there was nothing to worry about and that I would watch after Sandy while he was gone.
I sat down next to Ronnie who was fast asleep crumpled over to one side. His eyes were racing around behind his closed eyelids.
I pushed him up and took my seat back. He didn't wake at all.
Rachel sat down in the chair next to me.
"So, who are these people?" she tucked her feet underneath her on the chair for warmth.
"I don't know. But things here seem much more copasetic." I rubbed my eyes. I was feeling very tired myself.
Silence walked into the room. He looked underamazed by what was happening. He grabbed another chair and drug it to where we sat and joined our conversation. He wore all black clothes and his face was wrapped to just below his eyes with a black cloth. When he sat down he took off the face wrap.
"How are you guys doing?" He had a long scar on the left side of his neck that went up behind his ear and into his short messy black hair.
"I'm fine; I think Ronnie should see a doctor or something though. He was hit really hard. I'm surprised he got back up and started walking around."
"He will get looked over just before his debriefing. Unfortunately the medical staff are all tied up with Vanish right now."
"Is she going to be alright?" Rachel asked.
"I think so, Hothead is torn up, it's been a long time since we have seen an overuse. Truth be told it's been six months or so since we have been on a mission. When we got the message from Zach, we jumped on the chance for new recruits."
I shook my head, my mouth hanging open, it was like he was speaking another language altogether. I kept looking at the scar on his neck and wondered if that could have been one of us if Rachel hadn't been there to stop the bullets.
"Awesome force field by the way." I turned to look at her.
"Thanks. I was kind of surprised myself that I was able to do it. I had only done it once before."
"We have found that in times of dire need one's abilities tend to work better. Not to say that someone who spends time learning to control their ability can't do better." Silence explained.
"Where do we go from here?"
"After Sam finishes all of the interviews he will gather you all together and kind of explain things to you, like some of the rules. He won't be able to get them all and you will have a lot of questions I'm sure, but we will do our best to teach you as things come up."
"Is this what you went through when you came here?" Rachel asked.
"Sort of, but I was only six when I arrived." he counted on his fingers as if coming to this place would have been forgettable.
"What happened?" I wanted to know everything that I could, everything that he would tell me. I wanted to know if his story was like ours.
"My parents were fleeing from another branch of Aurora. We were all naturals and my father was informed that we were wanted for study. We got cornered in a small town in northern California. My father took on twenty sabers, and two Mods. Unfortunately, he was killed and my mother as well. He was just not powerful enough. The Mod tried to kill me. He was a telekinetic and he bombarded me with debris from the building that my father and the Sabers had torn to pieces.” He stopped for a moment, remembering.
“He would have succeeded if not for Acumen and Fade. Acumen is Sam's code name. Fade is another teleporter, but she has been gone for some time now. I don't think you'll meet her. They killed the Mod and brought me here. Fade raised me until she left."
"Why did she leave?" I sat on the edge of my seat hanging on every word.
"No one knows. It was about a year ago, she was just gone one night." He looked devastated.
Sam returned with Kenny and swapped him for Rachel. Before long he had brought her back and with the help of a male nurse, carried Ronnie out of the room.
"He seems nice enough." He sat with Sandy, who would be next.
"Acumen is like a father to a lot of us." Silence smiled.
We all sat quietly and waited for the next step. Ronnie looked like a million bucks when he came back and Sam brought a shirt for Rachel to change into, hers being covered in blood.
Sandy didn't take long. Lastly Sam took the twins together.
~//~
Sam came back to the room after a short while; the twins however didn't return.
"Where are Mike and Mary?" Rachel demanded.
"They are on a flight to New York City. There is a family there that wanted to adopt a child and they were ecstatic to be able to adopt twins." Sam looked sorry, but confident.
"Wait, you just sent them away?" I protested.
"Don’t worry; they will be taken care of. If we hadn’t sent them now it would have been just that much longer before we can leave for a warmer climate."
"But we didn't even get to say goodbye." Rachel was very upset.
"Don't worry Rachel, this is not goodbye. They are in good hands and you will see them again. I promise." He stopped and took a breath.
"But!" Rachel pleaded.
"I'm sorry. I am very sorry that it had to be this way. I promise that you will see them again, soon." he looked genuinely sorry.
Sam paced, gathering his thoughts for a few moments.
"Care to explain what's going on?" I started.
He took a deep breath. "Well, let me start by saying that it's nice to meet all of you. We call ourselves The Last Line. As far back as the Salem Witch Trials we have been here to protect users from humans and humans from users in one form or another."
"Are you with the government or what?" Kenny, the ever paranoid, a
sked.
"No, we are affiliated with the government and we do get some funding from them, but otherwise no. We found that with the government, no matter how hard they try, there always seems to be a few corrupted politicians. After a few incidents where they tried to use us as an end to their means, we decided that it would not have a place in our organization."
"We work together trying to make the world a safer place for people like us. Look, I'll be honest with you; we have never rescued more than two people at one time. We are not really prepared. We didn’t get a whole lot of notice from Zach."
"What is going to happen to us?" Rachel asked.
“We have a complex in North America where we have set up a small community. There we will train you to properly control your abilities and meld into a social environment. We also think that education is very important so we will make sure that you have a strong foundation. We will also provide you with pathways to pursue higher education.” Sam explained.
“Sounds great.” I wasn’t really excited but I wanted to get some sleep that wasn’t medicinally induced.
"When can we get a meal?" Ronnie rubbed his stomach.
"There are a couple cooks working right now."
"Well, alright then." Ronnie sat down.
"We aren't staying here in Alaska?" I asked.
"Oh no, no it's far too cold here." Sam acted like he was shivering.
"Good to hear." Sandy said.
Sam's phone chirped. He took it from his pocket and looked at the screen. "The food is ready. So let's go get something to eat." he motioning for us to follow him.
I didn't know how to react to what was happening. These people went from soldiers to normal people in the blink of an eye. Like someone had flipped a switch.
The dining room wasn't big; one long table ran down the center. The five of us, Sam, and Silence all took a tray and filled them with the different foods that the cooks prepared. We had a Thanksgiving Day feast on each of our plates.
For the first few minutes everyone just ate. Silence finally broke the silence, "You'll like Eastcroft, it’s a good place to live."
"Where is it?" I asked between bites.