“The fact that they targeted me specifically, and triggered me, means they must have some way to know what people’s powers are, possibly from a distance. Otherwise, how could they track me down?”
Zane had looked away with the mention that there might be someone else like his deceased girlfriend. Ava chimed in. “Not necessarily from a distance. If you visited that mall with any frequency, then it’s possible they had just stationed someone there to scope out metahumans.”
“Yeah, but why that mall specifically?” I countered.
They all just shrugged. I continued. “Also, if they intentionally triggered me using Avery’s power–“
“That’s her name?” Trinity exclaimed in disbelief.
“Could be a fake,” Zane replied.
I just ignored them both. “…Then I doubt they would ever risk having her use her ability on me. Otherwise, what’s to say I wouldn’t go out of control again?” No one said anything, so I continued. “Which makes me wonder what other ability users they have available behind the scenes. Because yesterday when I was talking to the General, I felt someone in the room next door – someone threatening. Someone who the General thought could stop me if I tried anything.”
Trinity finally focused on the conversation. “Well, we didn’t know about the fear guy. And the only reason we know about this girl is because she’s their primary method of punishment.”
“You’re really bitter about that, aren’t you?”
She scoffed. “How can I not be? You slept with the enemy!”
I grimaced and quickly changed the subject back. “Why do they let you see her anyway? Why not just place her behind a one-way window?”
Zane shrugged. “Maybe her power has limitations, like unobstructed line of sight.”
“Or maybe,” Trinity said, “she just enjoys what she does and wants her victims to see her watch them cry out in pain.”
Liz shook her head. “She didn’t look like she was enjoying herself, especially when I begged her to stop…”
We all looked down at her. Ava finally responded. “Well, maybe it’s because you look so young. She never seemed to have a problem with hurting the rest of us.” She then looked up at everyone else for confirmation, and they all nodded. Except Zayden. He was just staring off into space now. I wasn’t even sure if he was listening anymore. Granted, it wasn’t like he couldn’t leave if he wanted. No one was forcing him to stay. Although, I realized it had started raining outside – maybe he didn’t want to get wet and was waiting to see if it would stop.
We continued to consider what else we could figure out from our limited information, but no one had any other obvious deductions to speak of. However, we were all still fairly lost in thought while Liz was eating, causing us all to jump when a soldier slammed the door and ran in soaking wet. It was Kennedy, the guy that I had always seen with the General, the one who looked to be about thirty. He had the appearance of someone who had never been in the field a day in his life, as if the hardest thing he had ever done was boot camp a decade ago.
“Jacob Knight,” he said in an annoyed tone, probably because he had to run through the rain. “I need you to come with me.”
I quickly stood up, glancing at everyone’s worried expressions, before following after him. I hesitated when I saw the torrential downpour outside. No wonder this guy was pissed – stepping outside for only a second was like taking a bath. I was surprised the sound wasn’t louder on the roof of the cafeteria.
As I ran out into the rain, getting soaked instantly, I tried not to run too far ahead of the guy. At this point, it wouldn’t really matter if I ran faster anyway, because getting more soaked almost wasn’t even a possibility. When we got inside the main building with the warehouse, gymnasium, and interrogation rooms, the guy told me to strip down to my underwear.
“Because I’m wet?” I asked in confusion.
“No,” he retorted in irritation, “just do it.”
I complied, leaving my wet clothes by the door, and then followed him down the hall. My skin had a shine to it from the moisture, but I didn’t feel chilly like my normal self would have – only being hungry made me feel cold now. We then made several turns before entering a large room with almost nothing in it. The walls were bare cinderblocks and it was very similar to the first interrogation room I had been in, except there was no mirror in the wall and it was much larger. Otherwise, it had the familiar bolted down chair and table – the chair was facing away from the door this time. There were security cameras in two of the corners, as well as speakers just below one of them. On top of the table was a small leather bag.
The guy told me to sit down and then began explaining himself. “We’re going to blindfold you. The General wants to test out your ability to sense threats like what’s been reported in the field. He wants to understand the nature of it, since our system wasn’t able to provide a decent explanation of what you can do.”
I nodded, finally understanding what was going on. At least I wasn’t in trouble again. They had just finished testing Liz’s abilities, so why not test mine? I had already shown them that I wasn’t as predictable as they were used to. I still had no idea why I needed to be almost naked for this though.
The soldier opened up the leather bag and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, as well as thick black bag that he promptly secured over my head so I couldn’t see. I suddenly felt like I was in a movie, being prepped for transportation to some secret military hideout. Granted, technically, I was already there. It wasn’t like this place was on the map.
Once he had handcuffed my hands behind my back, around the chair, he secured them with a chain to a metal loop screwed into the concrete floor. “Alright.” He announced, once he was finished. “The General will not be physically present for this, but will be watching via video.”
I nodded in acknowledgment, and listened to him walk out of the room. I began wondering why they found it necessary to handcuff me, but then I unexpectedly figured it out. Now that my eyes were covered, I was focusing more on my sixth sense. That’s when I noticed four people walking down the hall towards the room. Two of them were normal soldiers, and two of them were decisively not.
I instantly recognized one of the threats as the person who I had sensed behind the one-way mirror the previous day. However, something was very different now. Yesterday, when I was chilly, this person had undoubtedly been a threat. But now, they didn’t seem so threatening. I wondered if my recently improved durability had anything to do with it.
I didn’t recognize the presence of the second individual at all, but they didn’t seem very threatening either. The reason I had noticed them is because I could sense that they were threatening to everyone else, including the person who was a slight threat to me. I had no idea why that would be. It was like a game of rock-paper-scissors with ability users. Granted, I was certainly threatening to both of them, which must have meant I was the rock – because no one in their right mind would deny that in real life paper could stop it.
Once the four people arrived at the door to the room, the two soldiers remained in the hallway, while the two metahumans quietly slipped inside. The door was closed behind them, and they slowly separated. The more threatening one walked to my right, so I automatically turned my head to look at them as they walked towards the wall. Granted, it wasn’t like I could actually see anything, other than what my sixth sense told me.
Nevertheless, the abrupt shift in my head must have been intimidating, because the person immediately stopped where they were. The other one stopped too, on my left side. Both of them were a good ten feet away. As I honed in on the person’s face, trying to pick up the minor details, I began to suspect it was a guy probably close to Zane’s age. It was hard to tell though. My sense picked out details like the overall shape of his face and his hair. But there was a lot it couldn’t see, like skin color and details about his eyes. It was sort of like looking at a more solid version of Ava’s shadow form.
After a momen
t, the speaker finally came to life, and the General’s voice reverberated in the room. “Jacob Knight–”
My head immediately snapped in the opposite direction when I felt the less threatening metahuman flinch, like really flinch. Was it because they knew what I was capable of? The jerk of my head caused them to take a step back too.
The General continued, barely missing a beat in response to my reaction. “You’re here for us to try to understand what your ability is capable of. Tell me, can you determine what the two people in the room with you are able to do?”
I didn’t respond to the General’s question, because I was too focused on the person on my left. The moment I had focused in on them, my sense filled in the details, and I saw that it was a girl about my age – one who held up one of her hands up to her chest defensively. Even though I couldn’t see her face clearly, I knew the shape of that body. I had spent enough times staring at it in the last month, never mind the time I’d spent naked with it.
It was Avery, and I suddenly realized the real reason why I was blindfolded. They probably didn’t want to test my ability at all. Otherwise, why handcuff me? I suspected I was really brought here to find out if these two metahumans could subdue me. Because if they couldn’t, then they had a serious problem on their hands, with no way to discipline me from acting out, other than torturing Trinity. And as far as they knew, that wouldn’t work on me, especially since it had seemed I had been willing to kill Liz the day before.
Which meant I had to act like they could hurt me. Otherwise, it was uncertain how they would handle me. While they might not be able to capture me if I wanted to escape, at the very least I wouldn’t be able to maintain this life with the others – they wouldn’t willingly let me stay on the team. And I still wasn’t sure if Trinity would come with me.
I briefly wondered if that’s why I was naked too, so that they could see my blood a split-second sooner in case I was going to attack.
My main problem now was figuring out how to be convincing that they were hurting me. If I couldn’t feel pain anymore, then what if I didn’t feel Avery’s ability at all? If I acted like it hurt, especially when she wasn’t using it, then she could give me away. Which meant I needed to get her on my side. I needed her to lie for me, or at least remain quiet about it.
I suddenly looked up towards where the General’s voice was coming out of the speaker, knowing there was a camera right above it. He was still waiting for me to answer, probably assuming I needed some time to evaluate what I was sensing. However, I completely ignored his question to ask my own. “Do you know what was the hardest part of killing all those people in the mall?” I wondered loudly.
The General seemed pissed that I had ignored him. “Answer the question soldier!”
“It was the fact that I probably killed my girlfriend too! I loved her! And now she’s dead!” As I expected, the girl next to me flinched again. Avery flinched.
The General’s response was immediately, almost cutting me off at the end. “I don’t give a damn about your feelings! Answer the question!”
“Negative,” I said quickly. “I can’t sense what abilities people have. I can only sense the relative threat they pose.”
“Then tell me,” he said in a hard tone, “what you sense from the two people in the room with you.”
I immediately turned back towards Avery, trying to assess her body language as best I could. She wasn’t looking at me anymore, her head turned to the side. I was trying to debate between being at least somewhat honest or risking a blatant lie. If Avery would be willing to not expose my lie, then she might see me again. Did she want that? Did the time we spent together mean anything to her? I really wasn’t sure.
Finally, after a second, I whispered to her, hoping the General couldn’t hear. “Look at me.” She did immediately, seeming surprised by the gentleness in my tone. She trembled slightly, and that reaction gave me enough confidence to risk the lie. I looked back over at the other guy for a long moment, to make it seem like I was checking them both out in turns, before looking at the speaker again.
“The person on my left is more threatening, but I don’t feel like they have the capability to kill me…if that makes sense?” I tried to seem like I was unsure myself, like I was confused as to how that could be possible.
The General spoke again, his voice initially pleasant and then abruptly hard. “Very well, we are going to do a test. I want to find out how their abilities interact with yours; however, I need to make something very clear. You are not to kill either of them, or else Ms. Graham will suffer the consequences! Are we clear?!”
I nodded. “Yes sir.” Although I secretly doubted he could do much to Trinity if I killed his two ace in the holes. But as far as he was concerned, I shouldn’t know that.
He continued. “Very well. Havoc, you start.”
Avery flinched again, and I realized that was her codename. It seemed ironic since she couldn’t actually destroy anyone, nor did I think she was capable of even hurting more than one person at a time. Otherwise, why not use her in the field? The fact that her ability was limited to one person was likely why they used her for discipline instead.
When nothing happened, I began to wonder if I was right about not being able to sense her ability. However, I realized she had hesitated because when the General finally called out her codename again, I finally felt it. Instantly, it was like someone was gently tickling my nerves, with no sense of pain at all. Her ability was harmless against me.
I looked over at her briefly, seeing how her body reacted to the realization that her ability wasn’t working. As far as I could tell, there was no outward signs that she had began using it, which meant I might be able to pull this off, so long as she didn’t give me up. I guess I had no choice but to just risk it.
Unexpectedly, I slammed my head into the table as hard as I could, bending the frame, and began grunting as if I was in extreme discomfort. I didn’t think I could pull off screaming, but I could manage to be convincing at this. I’m sure the General knew I had a high pain tolerance.
Avery gasped in response, and if I had any doubts it was her then I definitely knew now, because I was familiar with that gasp, although for a very different reason.
I made sure to keep my blood inside me, so that they might think I was unable to use my powers while she was actively doing it. The tickling sensation had stopped immediately when I faceplanted into the table, but I kept it up another few seconds. Finally, I relaxed slightly and began breathing a little heavier, careful not to exaggerate too much.
After a moment, I sat up a little, but not all the way. The General’s voice echoed in the room again. “Well Mr. Knight? Tell me what your experience was. I noticed that I didn’t see any blood. Were you unable to attack Havoc?”
I knew he couldn’t see my face, but I tried to act confused as I looked up at him. “Well, no, it hurt too much to use my blood…although, I could have attacked after it was over, but I thought you told me not to?”
He seemed pleased by that answer, as he continued. “Very well. Your turn Magnitude.”
I immediately assumed there was going to be an earthquake or something, but should have known better. Not all codenames were so revealing, and even the ones that seemed that way really weren’t. I for one had no idea how powerful Trinity’s ability was, or even the true nature of it, simply from her codename. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have needed to ask.
Thus, I was surprised when it felt like someone had suddenly turned up the gravity. Avery seemed fine, as if the abrupt change didn’t reach her, but suddenly I could feel the chair begin to buckle underneath me. Technically, I was still fine too, but since I could feel its intensity increase, I decided to start lowering my head and grunt like I was struggling against it. The guy standing on my right seemed to be annoyed that I wasn’t immediately flattened by his power, because he turned it up significantly more and I had to really pretend like it was flattening me out, especially once I could feel both the table a
nd chair start to give way. I realized if it had been only two days ago then he would be breaking my bones right now. As it were, I was fine and could attack him easily. Which made me hope he didn’t try much harder, because otherwise it would reveal just how durable I had become.
Finally, just when I was certain the chair was going to fully give out, the General spoke up. “That’s enough Magnitude. Both of you may leave now.”
The intense gravity immediately stopped, and I heard the guy scoff before heading for the door. Avery hesitated briefly, before following suit. But I wasn’t sure she still wouldn’t give me away. Would she tell them once they debriefed her?
I felt confident they had both been instructed not to speak in front of me. Was there a way I might try to get her on my side before it was too late?
“Major General Armstrong,” I said abruptly. “If you find out that my girlfriend is still alive, can you let me know? I just want to make sure she’s okay. I really do love her.”
Avery immediately stopped in her tracks, but didn’t turn around. She began walking again after a second, but much more slowly.
The General seemed suspicious when he replied, trying to hide it with an angry tone. “And why in the hell would you be asking about that right now?”
I shrugged. “When else am I supposed to ask? It’s not like you ever stop by to chat.”
His response was immediate. “Watch your tone soldier!” But then, surprisingly, he was quiet for a moment. I began to wonder if he was going to say anything else, as I heard Avery walking into the hallway. Finally, he addressed my request in an insincere tone. “I hate to disappoint you, but we aren’t in the business of tracking down your one-time flings. You’ve got one foot in the military right now and one foot in prison. We don’t work for you – you work for us. Is that clear?”
I nodded immediately, trying to seem disappointed. “Yes sir.”
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