by Gann, Myles
They swam to their feet while Stephen pursued, swinging and grunting while every slice at their body missed its intended target. Caleb stumbled out onto the street and barely glimpsed a barricade of police officers attempting to cage the fighters. Stephen paid them no attention as he swung and hit Caleb’s stomach. Power had its major attention on the police, keeping bullets and taser claws away from their flesh, leaving Caleb with a completely defensive mindset. Stephen tried to punch low at his knees, but Caleb jumped, folded back his leg, and used what power he had to force his abdominals to cross a punch, which landed squarely across Stephen’s cheek. While falling back on his hand, the recovery time wasn’t nearly as long as hoped as another uppercut was loosed as he was airborne. Caleb’s hands wrapped around Stephen’s before substantial contact was made, lessening the rising whine at his ears.
The force still moved him back five feet, where Power exploded the rest of their reserves and pushed the officers back and out of commission. Stephen roared as he flew forward again—“Alice! Behind us!”
Power encased her immediately as Caleb pulled up a slab of a disfigured building to block the brunt of the bulrush. Stephen crashed hard against the shield, reinforced by the minority of Caleb’s strength, and moved all three of them back with Caleb’s rubber soles squeaking against the blacktop. Stephen pushed and pushed with Alice completely surrounded by Power, and Caleb losing ground with every passing second. Stephen began using the slab as a steering wheel, soon forcing Caleb to the edge of fifty-foot bridge that fell to a heavily-populated street. Alice’s protective capsule stayed resilient as Caleb groaned through the sharp corners slicing at his field and bones that began to pop louder than the moan in his head. “I need you, now.”
“We have to protect her.”
“We won’t have her if he pushes me any further.”
Power didn’t deliberate anymore; Caleb let his eyes blaze blue again as the concrete between the men crumbled until they had clasped hands: Stephen’s larger body leaning over Caleb’s as Alice was hunched beneath, barely shielded behind the bending torso of Caleb and Power. They timed their counter perfectly; Power snapped the lock with two heavy pounds at the elbows while Caleb rotated an elbow into his solar plexus with strength he’d never had to use. The reverberation was massive as it echoed through the bridge beneath them and between the buildings for half the city. His fist stayed flexed, and through another blinding move, every bit of force allowable to Caleb plummeted into Stephen’s forehead. The man’s flight resembled the echo as he crashed through the other side of the bridge and pounded the pavement below.
Caleb was at the broken rail in a blink. When he looked down, Stephen was already up, but running away, his groans coming freely as he disappeared at the horizon.
‘Alice.’
‘Is fine.’
Caleb tried to turn around, but felt incredibly weak as Power receded completely.
---
“No!” Alice sprang forward in time to wrap her arms around Caleb’s body, saving it from falling the same way the large man had done just seconds ago.
- - -
Power awoke a few seconds before Caleb. It stepped aside to allow Caleb control as they both took inventory. ‘Are we in pain?’
‘Not that I can tell. We’re restrained and blindfolded. Did the idiots really think our eyes were, what, the source of your energy?’
‘They’re bound to try anything. Get out and look around the room.’
Power escaped through the gauze bandages and allowed Caleb to observe everything through it. ‘Body looks okay. We’re healing now that we’re conscious. Some sort of quarantine room: white walls with plexiglass and slick floors.’ It seeped through the cracks and into the hallway. ‘Room of a hospital. Ten floors up. The boy scout brigade is here; about a dozen armed guards with the faint smell of helicopter fuel on all of them, so at least two gunner ships somewhere nearby.’ It retracted with a slight chuckle from Caleb filling its form. ‘Something funny?’
‘We could take them all couldn’t we?’
Power looked away from his eyes. ‘I suppose we could.’
Caleb kept his eyes closed and gazed through his cloudless mind. ‘But we don’t want to, do we?’
‘No, we don’t.’
He put imaginary hands behind his imaginary head. ‘How far did he push us?’
The memories began projecting against the roof of his mind as they both watched; intoxicating revolutions of double-helixes comprising colorful emotions sprang to the roof before raining back from sagging clouds. ‘He hurt me this time. Neither one of us could block a full attack, but redirection worked. Within a bull fight, he would win, but with our combined vessel, his chances of winning were lessened considerably. We still weren’t ready, and he did get away.’
The images continued to flash by. ‘So did we.’
‘Do you think he’ll be back?’
‘He’d come after us.’
‘Us? Your proposing some backwards permanent truce?’
‘You said it yourself: we fought him together.’
‘We did, yes.’
‘And we’re caring for the same things.’
‘Heh, you’re attempting to get in your own head?’
‘Listen,’ he said within his head as his internal eyes closed again, and they were suddenly back on the cliff with Power looming over the wide view of the city. Caleb laid his imaginary body in the crotch of the tree ten feet above him with his back relaxed against the trunk and his leg dangling and swinging over the edge. ‘Do you really want all of this to go away?’
‘I wouldn’t miss it.’
The light suddenly went out all around them. ‘This?’
‘What is this?’
‘The night with Alice.’
‘Don’t bring her into this.’
‘You know that’s what we’re both here for now.’
‘You don’t believe that.’
Caleb squirmed in the dark. ‘It’s what we both want.’
‘I…can’t help but want her.’
Caleb’s eyes opened as Power ripped off the blindfold. ‘Find what room she’s in.’ He reached for his shirt as Power extended forcefully.
‘Two down from us. She looks fine. How sturdy is this door?’
‘Since it’s a sliding door, why don’t you just open it the peaceful way?’
Power grumbled as Caleb’s hand gently pulled it open, drawing attention from all of the guards. ‘Tense, but not overly-eager.’ “Sliding doors aren’t a good choice for keeping prisoners in, usually.”
The closest one walked forward with his open palms facing Caleb. “You’re not a prisoner. They were concerned you’d catch an infection with your open cuts.”
“I’m a quick healer,” Caleb said while still on his heels, prepared to let Power end any strike against him quickly. “You’re a part of the General’s group. It’s practically a commandment to capture me on sight.”
“Not anymore. The General was removed from duty. We belong to Major Howard now, and his official orders are to do nothing until he arrives. His helicopter is still half an hour out.”
Caleb let his shoulders relax a little while his power went to watch Alice through the door. “Not leaving yet.”
“Hey,” the man said, not garnering Caleb’s attention enough to turn his head. “Thanks by the way.”
“Don’t mention it,” he shot over his shoulder.
Her door was open slightly as Power recoated the inside of his skin and whispered from a wispy form next to him. “Stitches are the worst of it. She’ll be fine.”
“Will she be?”
“What do you mean?”
Caleb put his forehead in his palm and combed through his grown hair. “We don’t need to bother her.”
Power searched around in his head. ‘What are you thinking?’ It caught the end of a secretive thought, but could not make out Caleb’s intent. ‘Tell me.’
Caleb felt his mouth go dry. ‘I think there’s a
choice here that I’m ignoring. I think…that we can’t be with her.’
‘We both just said we wanted to be with her.’
‘I do…I do just as badly as you do, but there’s the choice: is my life going to be about what I want, or what the world needs?’
‘Is that even a serious choice? Get in there and tell her how you feel.’
“Are you two fighting again?”
He looked up and smiled slightly at Alice, whose eyes barely opened and head rolled around with a lazy smile plastered across her lips. ‘I will.’ He opened the door until his frame could squeeze through. She carelessly stretched and ripped the IV from the needle, but Power caught it and reattached the hose before she could panic. “Thanks guys. What would I do without you?”
‘Tell her that she’d be lost. Tell her we can never be apart.’
Caleb walked around and adjusted the tape on her arm, making a note of keeping his eyes away from hers. “I can’t stay, Alice.”
‘Don’t, Caleb, don’t! She could come with us. She would always be safe with us around. It could work!’
“I figured. I was kinda surprised you came down to the festival.”
“I didn’t come for that. I just came to stop Stephen. I was on my way out of town when I saw him.”
He sat down heavily in a reclining chair while Alice lost some of her smile. “Just like that you would’ve left?”
As she mumbled heavily, he whispered. “I left a note.”
“What did it say?”
“It is not that my heart is cold, or my world is split, or that my feet will travel no more. It is that I have found through my endless march a path I must travel alone, and where your warm hand cannot reach. Farewell, farewell to all that is light, although I will miss you so.”
Her smiled completely disappeared. “He was going to leave? Like he would die and his soul would leave his body and I would never see him again, like I’d have to chisel his name onto a stone with a date and a last line of wisdom…,” her voice rose, “you said that? Is that all this was to you is a short-term thing? A window to see how screwed up you are?”
“That’s what it turned out to be.” He rolled the chair close, feeling his stomach rising into his throat with every pump of his heart pushing sour, bitter blood into his words and actions. “I want to be with you, I want to…be everything you need me to be. Right now, I can’t do that. I—”
“I love you!”
Caleb felt everything drop into a cellar. His head lowered as his neck could barely keep the needed strength applied. ‘Please, Caleb, please just…touch her hand or brush away her hair from her face, or make her laugh….’ His hand rose but fell again quickly. ‘You know how to make her happy, please just do it.’ Power was trembling in Caleb’s body. ‘Not again. Please not again.’ “Do you know what you just said?”
“I know what I said.”
“‘I am eternally bound to you, I will let nothing ever come between us, and if the world were to end, I could find a way to stop it just to have another breath with you at my side.’ That’s what you said. In three little words.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “That’s why I can’t say them yet. I hate myself for what I’ve done, and I can’t get over that. Until then, my hatred will rule me. I can’t lie to you, no matter how much I want to.” He stood. “I’m so sorry, Alice.”
He wasn’t halfway turned before she spouted. “Take me with you.”
“I can’t.”
She sat up and started ripping off heart monitor wires. “You can change.” She stood and yanked the IV closer, causing her arm to bleed. “I’ve watched you change and become different from the Prince, and you can do the rest. I know what I feel, and I will not let you walk away from me. Not from this. Not after how special you told me we were.”
“We are special,” he said while registering the approaching helicopter blades. “But it will be painful. I don’t know what it will take to change me, or how long.”
“I don’t care,” she said while finally making eye contact; stout, resolute eyes being pushed out with all of her might. ‘Take her with us. Don’t you dare leave her here.’
‘We might hurt her.’
‘But what if we don’t?’
Caleb leaned into her intense stare; through it until their heads touched, the final centimeters found the mussed hair sticking to their foreheads ramming together. “Why, why, why, why, why, why,” she continuously mumbled beneath his mouth.
He answered with his lips angled towards her eyes. “Because you are Everybody, and you will settle for nothing less than perfect.”
“Please be him. Now and forever, be him.”
Power gently pulled them apart so Alice could retrieve her clothes.
Five minutes passed before Major Howard walked past the empty room.
Chapter 20
“All videos have been pulled from the internet.”
Major Howard took a small drink of his tea before answering the face on his wall. “How much did those run us?”
The small staff sergeant smiled a little, seeming to accept the Major’s laid-back state. “About four years of my salary, sir.”
“Bring that up at your next review. Might get you a raise, Peters.” Major Howard retied his robe and patted his wife’s hand on his shoulder. “Did our rogue agent decide to check-in?”
“Not exactly, sir. He broke in for a few seconds, but didn’t seem too fond of staying.”
“And the only thing that was stolen was the synthetic material we injected Stephen with?”
“Again, not exactly. That was stolen in bulk, yes, but a group of privates and a doctor weren’t among the accounted for either.”
“Ancel?”
“That was the doctor’s name, yes.”
“Shocker.” The Major took the rest of the lukewarm tea into his stomach. “Whose men left with the defectors?”
The Sergeant flipped opened a thin folder and scanned down. “All of yours were accounted for…General Fink’s. Six of the newer recruits.”
“He loses half of a unit days after I circumcise all three of them. Did you ever hear what the official Presidential stance on coincidence in the military was?”
“No, sir.”
“It doesn’t exist, which means anybody associated with a supposed coincidence becomes completely, if not mandatorily, expendable. Especially with a black hole project such as this. We were supposed to end the war, but we may have complicated it.” The Major felt the tugging of his dog at his ankle. “I’ll call you back in a bit, Peters.”
The Major removed his ear piece and tossed it onto the desk before gently pushing away the puppy at his ankles. An extended sound of crinkling paper same from across the room. “Tell me what’s wrong, Bradley.”
“Where do I begin, Marie? With the country? The war I all-but promised our President would end inside a year with the help of a project he could know nothing about, the fact that I added to this country’s deficit, or its terror level? Tell me where to start and I will.”
His wife set her reading glasses beside the folded paper and walked over to her huddled husband. She hugged his head to her tiny stomach. “There you go again. The world will not be changed in a day, Mr. Howard, that I promise you.”
“People always say that. They say that until they’re blue in the face, but the fact is that one day, someone’s going to make a decision that will change the world for better or worse, and I don’t know about everyone else in this damned country anymore, but I want to make the good decision—the right decision.”
Marie rubbed at his short hair, the Major relishing in the feel of her skin across his thinning scalp. “What happened that makes you think you’re not doing this country a service anymore?”
Major Howard sighed. “My project went AWAL with a lot of dangerous hardware during an unscheduled test run. He’s got the kind of firepower entire armies pine after.”
“But it wasn’t your call?”
“No, an underling helped
him escape.”
“What kind of test was it?”
The Major looked up, finding Marie’s vision far away in thought. “He was testing the limit of the power we gave him. Turns out it wasn’t a natural fit, which turned him hostile.”
“What did you have him test against? I take it paper targets and earmuffs wouldn’t work for a thing like that.”
“Turns out there was some other guy with as much power as him. Seemed like the perfect test subject.”
“Bradley Howard: there was something else out there with this type of firepower? Did it ever occur to you not to add fuel to that fire?”
“I know, Marie, I know. Hindsight always breeds critics, but the situation had controllable variables, as far as they can be.”
“Well, obviously it didn’t. What’s wrong with the original man?”
“Well….” The Major trailed off, suddenly caught in an epiphonizing moment. “There’s nothing wrong with him at all.”
“Men don’t just spring out of the ground like that.”
The Major pushed the rolling chair off her hips and back towards the desk, reaching for the ear piece with one hand while waving her off with the other. “No, I know, you just gave me an idea, Marie. Peters? Are you on the line still?”
The image of the staff sergeant sprang upon the small wall again. “Yes sir.”
“Find out where Whitmor is through the local authorities, friends, family, our own scouts, anybody. I’ll need to meet him face-to-face.”
Marie leaned down onto his shoulder and smiled down at him, truly proud of her husband without even knowing the result of his action.
- - -
As he squatted atop the glass floor, Caleb found something soothing in the night.