- - -
Pierce hated driving in the dawn hours. It didn’t seem to matter in which direction he drove, because the car would somehow always face the rising sun, which was an annoyance that was diminished only slightly by driving with the visor down. The behavior of their planet’s light source exacerbated his already palpable aggravation, and they had wasted an animal’s flesh, which was practically a cardinal sin.
They hadn’t left immediately after the call from home. They hadn’t been able to. Madeleine had completed the core of the pictures they’d needed that night, focusing the telescope on Rho Cassiopeiae for later analysis of the supernova candidate, while he’d finished with the animal. His cuts had been quick and sloppy due to the rush, and the necessity of the slackness had clashed with his need for perfection. He’d separated the beast’s parts into piles for individual disposal—especially the portions that could lead to its identification—and then he’d discarded the trash. With all the investment in killing and dumping a creature, he hated wasting the meat, but they wouldn’t have time for dinner nor the time to store it properly. Once Madeleine had finished with their observations for the night, they’d packed the evidence in the car and cleaned the observatory again lest they leave behind any evidence of their hobby. Once they’d felt satisfied with their handiwork, they’d left a note for Dr. Harper, locked the observatory, and taken off. After placing the refuse in nondescript black, heavy-duty trash bags, they’d dropped off the unidentifiable trash at an apartment complex that typically had its pickup on Thursdays. Since the bags wouldn’t burst, the uncategorizable meat would travel to the city dump. However, they had split the majority of the meat and bone between the loose soil of the funeral site in Bristol and a site in Johnstown that they hadn’t used for a year. Johnstown had offered a nice secluded spot, but the brambles that kept it from being discovered had really torn up Pierce’s arms this time around. The regular trash, which mostly consisted of soiled plastic that had been rinsed and bleached, had been left at a construction site they had passed on their commute between Mason and the city; it was a large-scale operation, and their addition would likely go unnoticed. With that business done, they’d finally been able to head home.
As he shifted the visor to blot out the sun again, Pierce thought resentfully that Cassie’s situation better be dire. While it had been the couple’s intent to introduce their uncivilized habit to their offspring, the incident with Orion had permanently derailed the idea, and Pierce hadn’t wanted anything to do with either of his children since then. They were an inconvenience for which he paid weekly, and though he suspected that at least one of them must have inherited his ability, he could never be bothered to interact with them long enough to discern if both of them did.
Pierce’s diet allowed him to heal quickly from his wounds. This ability was put to practical use whenever their meals fought back, and the night the wounded animal had escaped and tried to carry off his son, Orion had tried to help it. He had not tried to help the animal to escape—the four-year-old hadn’t understood that concept—but he had attempted to assist by a different means: His will had begun to knit the beast’s wounds before Pierce had been able to put a forceful and violent end to the incident. Even if his son didn’t want to partake in Pierce’s exotic diet, the episode had given him the knowledge that his son shared at least some part of his ability, and this meant that he still had the potential to one day join him. He’d never witnessed the same aptitude in his daughter, leading him to dismiss her as insignificant, so the interruption that she had caused in his life was met with aggravation rather than concern. While he doubted that he would ever feel true concern for his son, Orion and his untapped potential at least might be worth his time.
At around six o’clock, he hit the traffic forming on the outskirts of New York City, which is precisely what he had hoped to avoid. His displeasure grew; the morning rush hour would make his already lengthy commute even longer, and for the majority of it, he would be sitting still. He looked to his right at Madeleine, who was sound asleep beneath her jacket. She had fallen asleep just outside Bristol and had snored softly the entire way. In the morning light, with her face relaxed, the lines of age seemed to disappear and allow the ghost of her former beauty to resurface. He smiled briefly, thinking of their courtship in the fall of their junior year when he’d taken her to see The Shining, and he allowed nostalgia to warmly escort him the rest of the way home. Surprisingly, he found a parking spot near the entrance to their apartment and awoke Madeleine gently after he parked the car. He grabbed their small suitcase from the back seat—the trunk had been used to transport the animal and would be sanitized thoroughly during their return trip to Mason—and as they headed up to the apartment, they passed a man in the lobby. Dressed in a black suit that looked a little worse for wear, he faltered in his step, stared at Pierce for a moment, and then staggered off, causing Pierce to question whether the man was inebriated or high. He shrugged and continued up to the apartment, following closely behind his wife.
As the door to the apartment swung open, Madeleine’s greeting was cut off before it began. It appeared they had interrupted something between their children. Cassie scoffed, “Now they show up,” and then she stormed up to her room. Orion called after her, followed directly by his mother’s echo, but Pierce simply slipped into the apartment, set the bag down, and secured the door.
“What happened?” Madeleine asked, confusion replacing any concern she may have had.
Orion sighed heavily. “Nothing. Another officer interviewed her this morning, and he upset her. He just left.” He didn’t look pleased to see them either, but Pierce dismissed his son’s reaction as being due to the timing of their arrival.
Madeleine shook her head. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“Mom, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think she—”
“Why wouldn’t it be a good idea? I’m her mother!” she snapped.
Orion backed down immediately and appeasingly offered to make breakfast for all of them. He retreated into the kitchen, where he started pulling ingredients out of the cupboard and refrigerator and laying them on the counter. Since Madeleine met no more resistance, she headed up the stairs to her daughter’s room, leaving Pierce alone.
Pierce did not intend to stay long, but it wouldn’t hurt to unpack. It had been months since he’d been home—Madeleine often made the trip alone to avoid suspicion about his youthful appearance—and there were several items of clothing and notebooks he wanted to collect or switch out. If nothing else, he’d be able to nap in their disused bed while his wife sorted out any issues with their children.
- - -
Cassie sequestered herself in her room for the entire afternoon. Her mother had tried to reach out to her that morning, but the attempt had ended disastrously. Madeleine didn’t know how to relate to her daughter any more than she could fly a plane, and every word that had tumbled from her mouth had reinforced this fact. When Cassie had been unable to stand it any longer, she’d driven her mother out of her room. Orion had come by sometime later with an offering of food, but she’d also refused to speak with him; he’d have only scolded her for disrespecting their mother, as if Madeleine hadn’t only wanted to adopt a pretense of caring. No, she’d had enough of her family for the day.
For the first hour, she texted her friends, gossiping about potential boyfriends, cheerleading practice, and the upcoming game versus their rivals, the Millennium Phoenixes. She minimized the events of the previous night, admitting only that she had been mugged, and then she claimed that the reason for her continued absence was that she was still hospitalized. This lie was further elaborated by the promise that her parents would take her to see a lawyer when she recovered so that she could sue the mugger’s family and the hospital. She claimed mistreatment by the staff and an accidental injection of morphine into her saline drip. The excitement of this distraction soon died
when Diana’s phone was confiscated by the teacher, and Kate and Natasha put theirs away to avoid a similar fate.
No longer distracted by her phone, Cassie turned to the Internet. The man who had visited that morning had claimed to work for a special government agency of some sort, but she couldn’t remember its full title or even its abbreviation. Her searches weren’t going any better, no matter how many tangentially related terms she attempted to add; no wonder she never did well on her research papers. Then, it dawned on her that she was missing a key term, and she finally received a hit after adding “Other” and refining the rest of her search request.
The BSI was established in 1987 under a cloak of secrecy, and while the government admitted that it existed, its true purpose remained hidden, and its vision statement was vague and blandly echoed that of the Department of Homeland Security: “To ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against specialized agents and vectors of harm.” Initially, the agency had been categorized under the Department of Defense, but after 9/11 and the creation of the DHS, it was shuffled underneath the latter’s already substantial umbrella. Literature on the BSI was rare, never doing more than alluding to its function, and official documents rarely discussed how its performance affected other government agencies or what “specialized vectors” it investigated.
Cassie gleaned much more from the slew of conspiracy websites that resulted when she redefined her search. These pages seemed to have originated with the dawn of the Internet, as if she’d stumbled to the edges of its primeval past, and they reeked of craziness and paranoia. None of them appeared to have been updated recently, if at all, and she took the information they provided with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, these sites echoed everything that the Outcast Support Network had ever said about the government, and this chilled her to the bone. She learned about Eric Dane being entombed within the BSI’s walls and that he had been brainwashed to persuade more of his kind to surrender to the government. Dane had claimed that those who turned themselves into the BSI were trained and given special treatment by the government, but Cassie had healthy doubts about that. She was horrified by the story of a woman named Stephanie Moreau; she was a shapeshifter who disguised herself as her son when she became suspicious of BSI’s intentions. Her distrustful instincts proved valuable when she was taken into custody and euthanized so she, as her son, could be dissected. It was enough to make Cassie consider leaving the apartment that night so that the BSI couldn’t track her. Unfortunately, she had nowhere to go, she had only a little money, she couldn’t drive, and her parents would be of no help.
No, if the BSI were as dangerous as the sites claimed, it would have sent more than one agent and taken her into custody that morning. She was letting fear consume her, and this was how she’d gotten into this mess in the first place. She took a deep breath and calmed her mind. There was only one person she could trust.
She went to the Outcast Support Network and composed a new message to Sone in which she explained what had happened to her. She then begged him to call her, giving him her phone number even though he had strongly warned against her ever doing so. It’s not as if she had anything further to lose; the BSI already knew where she was, and she was hoping to receive advice regarding her next step.
She took another deep meditative breath and refocused just as Sone had taught her to do. If she unclouded her mind and accepted the fear, rather than denying or hiding from it, everything would become clear. Sone must have told her this several times, but reaching that peaceful state was never as simple as he’d implied, and her lack of progress frustrated her. Until he responded, there was little she could do except wait, so she decided to spend the time wisely: She attempted to prevent any more incidents by reestablishing control over her ability.
If the BSI or anyone else came after her, she had to be ready, and there was only one way to do this. She needed to conquer her fear and explore and establish her limits. She could become stronger; the incident with the mugger, unpleasant as it had been, had proven that she had potential if she harnessed it.
The ghosts of fuel sources still taunted her from the edges of her senses, but they didn’t interfere with her normal vision; instead, they felt like an expansion of it. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply again, consciously slowing her breath and hopefully her heart rate as well. Sone maintained that true control lay with meditative techniques, which was undoubtedly why her abilities were so wild: She moved, thought, and lived too fast. With every deliberate inhalation, she felt her connection to the network of sparks and dying flames grow until it was as plain to her as any of her mundane senses. She felt the flicker of potential fuel sources everywhere merely waiting to become useful to her.
The neighboring apartment had a burning candle in every room. The lonely housewife who lived there liked to burn them when her husband wasn’t home. The smell reminded her of her mother’s cooking, and carrying this memory around the house made her feel less alone. Cassie reached out toward the flame and felt its warmth as if her hand were actually hovering over it. Just then, the connection became deeper and more intimate. The fire became her limb and was just as easy to manipulate; it took only a thought, and the flame jumped to obey her orders. It grew and grew until it reached its limits and consumed all of its fuel in a dazzling burst. Though it had snuffed itself out, Cassie still smiled at her triumph. Her technique was still unsophisticated due to her inconsistent periods of practice, but with time, it could be refined. The fire had not fed on her fear and grown wild; instead, it had remained under her control. The episode gave her new confidence, and she began again with a new target.
- - -
Morgan Connor sat in front of his laptop in his hotel room. It was not the first time he’d been to New York City, and it wouldn’t be the last, but the bureau had given him better accommodations on previous occasions. He assumed that this shabbier lodging was the result of the Secretary of Homeland Security’s declining focus on special interests. When the Cokeville Miracle had occurred and Eric Dane had been secured, President Ronald Regan had expressed a new fascination with all kinds of extraordinary phenomena, from aliens to the supernatural, and had, therefore, created the BSI’s four divisions: Paranormal, Extraterrestrial, Exceptional, and Unexplainable. While investigations had been launched, the results had been few: UFOs, ghosts, and creatures such as the kelpie had remained as elusive or unsolvable as ever. Only the Exceptional Division had yielded any results, and its usefulness had been challenged in the last decade with the appearance and strengthening of SION. The Network’s supernaturally charged radicals had proven to be quite powerful and determined, leading to deaths and destruction of property, which the BSI had been created to prevent.
The BSI’s job was to separate the wheat from the chaff—the trainable from the dangerous. Not all Others were destructive, but they had to learn to control their powers or they were destroyed for the good of humanity. Those who remained—the ones who completed training successfully—were allowed to live normal, albeit heavily monitored, lives. A few Others who had more useful abilities were employed by the government, often to apprehend rogue Others, but they were also sometimes used against America’s enemies.
In his first year with the BSI, Connor himself had discovered twenty-two Others, which was a record for a novice agent and more than three times the annual average of seasoned agents. Seven of the Others either had abilities that had been too potent or bizarre to trust—such as the ability to apparently travel through time—or had failed the training, but he had managed to save fifteen of them from euthanasia. Most had talents that were too minor to be utilized for government work, such as the ability to glow in the dark, and he kept in touch with a handful of the younger ones. While he was uncertain as to the fate of the rest after they had successfully completed training, he knew that one of them—Emma Braddock, who was known as Antithesis due to her power-nullifying abilities—had joined
Eric Dane in protecting America.
He stopped reminiscing and began to write his latest report on the girl called Cassiopeia Starr. Her ability automatically put her into the “dangerous” category because she was what was known as an elementalist—that is, an Other who could control some facet of nature. These individuals often exhibited a dearth of control and were the unequivocal justification to destroy all Others. When using their latent talent for the first time, most elementalists self-destructed and took any bystanders with them. They were considered living time bombs and had inspired the implementation of Operation Blackout.
However, the girl had shown the important capability to restrain herself. Connor had purposely baited her with inflammatory questions and accusations to judge her reactions. She had been angry, and she had lashed out with the words and surly attitude of a teenager, but she had not used her abilities to attack him, even when he had provided an ignition source. In fact, the lighter had played a key role in judging her to be trainable. Despite her brother’s painfully obvious fretting, she hadn’t appeared to remain cognizant of its presence after its introduction, and the sparks and flames had not reacted to her emotional state, which meant that she had a reasonable level of control over her power. Moreover, Connor hadn’t felt threatened by her supernatural abilities, though she might have physically struck him during her tirade had her older brother not been present.
He knew that the immolation of the criminal during his confrontation with the young Cassiopeia Starr had been a complete accident—the result of a reflexive defensive action rather than malicious intent. In addition to being a pyrokinetic, she appeared to be immune to fire, which came in handy because abilities didn’t always come in a complete set. He’d heard that the first elementalist in modern times had not been immune to his powers and had electrocuted himself on the battlefield sometime before Benjamin Franklin had begun his legendary kite experiments.
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