by Jon Davis
And Claire looked tired. So very tired. Tired of what, though? And why would Alex be afraid. What would make him that way? I looked at Ian, and thought about what he’d said about his people. “You say you didn’t know about Alex. And that the crystal hid him.”
There was a moment’s breath as I put things together. “Ian, Claire and Alex were on the run weren’t they—from the Noumenonii?”
Ian’s breath caught in his throat. He stared at me. I met his eyes over the edge of the phad. I said, “It’s not hard to connect things, Ian. Your people stay hidden. They didn’t help Alex on the Day; they won’t do anything about Yasmine. They sound like xenophobes. So, I’m betting that the Noumenonii don’t like losing one of their own do they? People might find out about them.”
Ian took the phad from my hand and brought up another picture. It was of Claire Grell, but this time it was a younger Claire. This Claire had a bright twinkle in her green eyes. Her smile was easy, and she looked as if she were about to break into laughter. She looked happy. And she looked a great deal like a certain witch that Ian and I knew. Huh.
I looked at Ian and said, “I’d seen the other picture of her before. But this one looks as though it was taken a long time ago.”
Ian closed the phad. “This came from just before she left the Noumenonii. We believe she was pregnant with Alex at the time, and it was the last time anyone in our society had seen her. Alex’s father was devastated.”
But eight years ago, Alex had come to live with his father. “Wait, Brian Shaw is a psychic?”
Ian gave me a patient look. I didn’t see what he was getting at, but then it clicked in my brain. “OMG! Brian isn’t Alex’s father! The whole thing about Alex’s birth certificate not having a father listed…that was true?”
And I just sounded like a mall rat gossip boy. Smiling, Ian nodded. Until now, I had thought that that so-called revelation had been a lie created by Joe Andrews.
Ian said, “Claire ran out on his real father. In the Noumenon society, there is a strong push for a permanent bond between partners. Claire broke the laws of the Noumenonii by leaving.”
I didn’t feel even a twinge of sympathy. I mean, I was sorry that it happened. On one hand, Alex might have been a happier person if his parents had stayed together. He’d lost his mother at ten, and then Brian had been a dick to him for seven years. On the other hand, the Noumenonii had this tendency to be hardheaded about things. They caused people to be forgotten by friends and family, and the few who did remember them... Well, the Noumenonii didn’t even tell Dana’s coven how their students were doing. What’s more, if they had helped Alex, we might not have Yasmine as a problem.
I looked from the picture and glared at Ian. “All this talk about Claire is nice, thanks for the history lesson. But as a distraction? It didn’t work. A question you didn’t answer was the reason that Alex was the only one to stop the asteroid.”
Ian looked away and then commented, “Yasmine wants something from Ryan Technologies. I’m guessing it’s the information about the Empowered. What else could she want?”
I sighed. He was avoiding the question. This was getting ridiculous. But I humored him and said, “Yeah, she wants all the information that Ryan Tech has about the Empowered. I’m guessing she doesn’t like people knowing too much about what makes us tick.”
I explained quickly as I could. Laying out what I thought, and what had been told to me by others. Throughout my talk about Yasmine’s idea to create opposing sides to fight against each other, Ian looked more and more incredulous.
He finally stopped me. “Let me see if I understand this. Yasmine hires…or manipulates a terrorist group to attack…what, Riverlite?”
I leaned back in my chair, giving him my answer. “Yup.”
He ignored my snide remarks and continued. “Then she brings in her group of Empowered to stop their attack.”
“Yup.”
He took a breath, then, “And she does it as publicly as possible, to get the acclaim and acceptance as heroes.”
“And from then on, she and her group of heroes become public icons, getting deeper into modern society and begin to influence things. Politics, social views, laws, until finally, they take over. Ta Da. New world order made in Yasmine’s version of heaven.”
Ian looked at me, unable to believe what he was hearing. After a moment, he chuckled slightly and then said, “That’s ridiculous! It’s simplistic! Just the fact that the Empowered are superhuman will make it nearly impossible for such easy acceptance. Yasmine may think of her plan as a successful way to control humanity, but it would hardly be heaven!”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Hey, man. Yasmine’s a telepath. If it doesn’t work she might just run out of patience and take over the minds of government leaders.”
Ian shook his head and said, “History is full of examples of what happens when governments and dictators try such tactics. People wake up. Germans in the 1930s and 1940s actually did fight against Hitler, weakening him in whatever way they could. Hitler barely survived assassination attempts by his own military. And in Occupied France, the French Resistance did far more. What do you people—?”
“Ian, you don’t get it. The Empowered aren’t a culture. We aren’t organized enough to demand something. Yasmine was able to manipulate a group of the Empowered to stop the warring parties in Africa. She’s stopped entire armies with her mind! And as for the Empowered who are following Yasmine…well let’s just say that she’s Jim Jones in a dominatrix outfit. She is using their belief in the Avatar to get them to carry out her wishes. Damn it, Ian! Riverlite and Ryan Tech is just the start of it!”
Ian finally looked worried. Good. Finally, he was seeing what I feared. But while Ian looked worried, he also wasn’t convinced. “No, Vaughn, sorry. There are simply too many people. She won’t be able to control all of humanity. She might get control for a short-while, but humans will eventually win out. There would be a war, yes, but the Empowered would lose. Yasmine is a fool to even consider such insanity.”
I sat up, folding my arms on the table. In a casual tone I said, “War…funny that. You’ve mentioned a couple. The war against Hitler and Germany, and the French Resistance was a good point too. But, you know, I like history and I like comic books. And I don’t think you realize that, for all the damage all those wars have caused, they were spread out over miles and miles of battlegrounds.”
Ian let out a short breath. “Your point?”
“In the comics, well, think about what happens when Superman fights any big powerful villain. Those fights trash cities. At least on television it has music playing along to enhance the drama. But in reality, there is no music, and the actors don’t get to leave the stage. And when it comes to actual war, between the Empowered? Think about those kinds of scenes on a much larger scale.” I explained.
I paused for a moment. He still looked skeptical. So I said, “Come on Ian, think of every square foot of Earth getting bombed like Dresden was in Germany of 1945. Hell, I can easily see some superhumans having the potential to create the same level of destruction that Hiroshima or Nagasaki went through. After all, if Alex could split Yama in two, then he could have done the same thing on Earth.”
I took a breath. “And likely, so can Empowered. We are his legacy after all.”
I shut up. I didn’t want to push it any further. We sat there in silence. Finally, he said, “No, that’s…that can’t happen. I can’t believe it could go that far. Besides, with the physical limits that you have I doubt—”
Ian shut up. Raising a brow in surprise, I asked, “What limits are you talking about?”
He made a dismissive hand gesture. “Never mind, it’s classified. Suffice it to say, the Empowered would lose. So we aren’t all that worried about Yasmine’s plans, Vaughn.”
I glared at him and said, “Look, that’s fine for you, but she’s already made Riverlite her first target. It’s on the news; she wants people to see this city being attacked so she can ‘defe
nd’ it! Damn it, Ian, I can’t stop her alone! I need help!”
I stood and leaned on the table. “Look, I know that you guys aren’t powerhouses, at least not up to the level that Alex was. Maybe that’s why none of you tried to stop Yama. But seriously, if there were enough Noumenonii around, it might make Yasmine reconsider. She’ll come after you no matter what; she knows about you. So cut her down now, before she can raise an army to find you and kill you.”
Ian stared at me for a moment. I could see that he was fighting not to tell me something. Or he was fighting to tell me something. Maybe his people had a way of blocking him from saying certain things. I wasn’t sure.
Either way, it didn’t surprise me when he said, “You don’t understand.”
“Fine, okay! You’re a bunch of selfish pricks! I got that from how you callously treat people’s memories and make people disappear! But the Empowered exist because of you! Because of the Noumenonii! If you people had tried to stop the asteroid or even helped Alex to push it away—”
I stopped when Ian visibly swallowed. Shame flashed across his face. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. For a moment, his reaction just confused me. Why would he feel ashamed about not helping Alex? My last question reverberated in my mind. Something was seriously wrong here…no, it wasn’t possible…was it?
Memories of those horrible days returned. NASA researchers had been confused about how Yama was acting. Nothing made sense. The concussive waves from all those nuclear blasts should’ve pushed the thing away from Earth. Instead, Yama literally swung around the moon to come right back at us. Oh, damn. I understood now.
“The Noumenonii—they didn’t just sit back. They—you—pointed the asteroid at us,” I said, praying that I was wrong. Praying that he wouldn’t answer.
After what seemed like an eternity, Ian finally said, “Yes.”
“You bastards!” I yelled. I could only stare. This was just too much. It was as though…as though…
God, I couldn’t even think of something that could describe what these bastards had done!
Then the building shook with a rumble of noise, and yells of panic sounded outside the room.
I looked at Ian and said, “Time’s up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Planetary genocide. What do you say to something like that? How do you react to seeing someone who almost made it happen? What do you even call something like that? Maniac? Madman? Hell, the word ‘insane’ doesn’t begin to cover the concept.
And how do you even label such a person? I couldn’t do it. And before I could even comprehend it, the attack had begun. Soldiers rushed in and pulled us out of the room.
They took us down the hall toward the stairwell. They were snappish, but at the moment, none of them seemed worried about me. No they were more worried about what was happening outside. More rumbles of explosions could be heard as we ran down the hallway towards the stairwell.
On the way down the stairs we had come up earlier, they told us that mercenaries were attacking the outposts near the highway. Perez asked Ian what he and his men should do. Ian gave them orders to call for help—they already had. Ian gave more orders, and I could see that he was definitely the man in charge around here.
I wasn’t sure how good an idea that was now that I knew what Ian’s people were like. But I also knew this wasn’t the time to discuss it. I just had to hope that the crazy genocidal maniacs hadn’t already done something new horrible thing. Like using the biology labs here to make a super virus or something. To make me worry even more, Ian tried to tell me that things would be all right. I just glared back at him. This was definitely not the time to try to make me feel all calm and relaxed. He had the sense to look away with a guilt showing in his eyes.
Running down the hall, we had to stop when the building shook—an explosion. And it was a lot closer than the guard posts. Someone was lobbing explosives…or running at the buildings and firing super-heated bolts from his hands. Brand.
As we came up to a corner to another hallway, we ran into a group of FBI agents. I remembered the tallest one, he helped Ian by guarding me during the good ‘doctors’ interrogation.
Ian said, “Dobrowski! Get us to that farmhouse. Reroute the helicopter there. We’ll take who we can as well. Get as many civilians evacuated as possible!”
I sighed. “That’s stupid! Yasmine has someone with super speed! As soon as they hear a helicopter, she’ll have him crash it to the ground!”
Ian turned to look back to me and shook his head. “No, it has the same stealth tech that we followed you with. If we’re careful, we should be all right.”
I smiled, mirthlessly. “I hate to spoil your day, but I heard it. I let you take me, you jerk.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. But he controlled his irritation and said, “But you have super hearing, they don’t. We should be okay if we get out of here quickly enough. Thankfully, there aren’t that many civilians on site.”
“And what about all the people you’re evacuating? Do you think they can be careful enough? Why don’t you just call in your friends?” I demanded. Nope, I just couldn’t get past this insanity. Ian’s people, the so-called ‘people of the mind’ had to be utterly insane. To drop a giant rock on their own planet—what had they been thinking?
Ian leaned in to whisper something to me, but before he could, I fervently whispered. “What were your people thinking? Damn, man! That’s…gods!”
He grabbed my arm. Squeezing it, he said, “Now is not the time, Vaughn. We’ll deal with it later! I know what you’ve heard is a shock. But you have to let it go for the moment.”
Let it go? Seriously, he wanted me to let a bomb like that go? I started to say something, but had to stop when Dobrowski spoke up. “We have a major problem. Communications have just been jammed. We can’t get a hold of anyone else in the complex. None of the other teams are answering, and mercenaries are in the building above us!”
“Dobrowski, we have a squad from Fort Harris. How are these terrorists able to put up such a serious fight?” Ian asked.
Dobrowski shook his head. His voice was filled with anger and fear when he said, “Doctor, nearly two dozen men in full combat gear appeared with high-powered rifles and grenade launchers. And when I say they appeared, I mean they just popped out of nowhere! And that was just the beginning. Before the radios went out, security reported more of these Empowered. They were mixed with the mercenaries. Worse, there’s a freaking nut job flying around yelling about being the start of the Final Reich and wearing a Nazi symbol on his chest!”
That would be one of the Germans from the conclave. They called themselves…what was it? Then I remembered. “They’re called the Letze Reich. That Nazi wannabe must be a part of their group. Was there a report of someone moving at extreme speed attacking anyone?”
Dobrowski looked at me with deep suspicion. “Someone like that just blew up the Abrams tank that the military had outside. All the men inside are dead.”
I blinked. Brand…damn it man, what did that evil witch do to you?
Looking back at Ian, Dobrowski said, “Dr. Eisenhawk, we did manage to get the helicopter. We’ll have to hurry, though. I don’t know how much longer we can hold the attackers off.”
We got the answer when Dobrowski screamed in torment. The FBI and soldiers pulled Ian and me back down the hall as a black liquid engulfed the man. We froze in place as he screamed in agonizing pain. The blackness pouring down his throat ended that. It didn’t matter. I saw his eyes. He knew what was happening to him. The acid consumed him, leaving nothing behind.
We ducked down when the black liquid emitted what sounded like gurgling laughter and streamed over our heads to cut off our way back up the stairs. It ate through the last of the soldiers behind us. He didn’t have time to do anything, but die. We could only stare at the rapidly eroding body while the liquid reformed into a woman’s shape and solidified into Rao Kular.
Looking at us with liquid black eyes, she laughed. She said, “So, Dane E
isenhawk! We finally found our Noumenonii…is that the word? Yes, Yasmine wishes me to kill you most of all.”
Then she focused on me and said, “And young Mr. Hagen, so good of you to be here! Shall we continue our earlier conversation?”
Guns fired, and the hall filled up with smoke and fire. Kular shifted instantly back to that black liquid state. In that form, she was simply destroying the bullets. I pushed back the fear that threatened to overwhelm me. Guns kept firing as soldiers and agents tried to pull us to safety. But I had to keep looking back. It was almost like watching a snake dance. I hoped that she would solidify while the soldiers were shooting.
No such luck; she simply stood there taking all the bullets. Rao Kular was liquid death. I realized that if we were going to get out, I would have to be the one to stop her. But it was going to be a hard thing to do, I would have to get the soldier to let me go.
We had reached the end of the hallway when Kular decided to make her move. With a laugh, she changed her form again and spread out to cover the hallway in a cube-like shape that ate into the walls. Thick, noxious smoke began to ooze from wherever she touched the concrete. I couldn’t help but think of an old Dungeons and Dragons monster. Great, I was going to die from a gelatinous cube. Of course, it was far too late for a new roll of the dice.
Telling myself how stupid I was, I pulled away from the group to stand between them, and acid cube woman. Behind me, Ian realized what I was doing and yelled, “Hagen, you stupid punk! Don’t be an idiot! She’ll destroy you as easily as she did Dobrowski!”
I was kind of agreeing with Ian’s assessment, but I only said, “Move it. Get out of here!”
They ran on. For a moment it felt as though something was looking back at me. Kular stopped moving. With a gurgling sound, she said, “Suicidal, Son’x? And here Demon thought you were a brave boy. He was certain that you would go down fighting to the last breath in some fool hope to save your little town. Pity, he’ll be so disappointed.”