by Jon Davis
Alex shook his head. “New…men… on ee… What the hell? Vaughn, snap out of it, dude! The world is coming to an end! Get past it! There’s nothing we can do.”
A distant clap of thunder came from the west. We looked up as Yama crashed into the high atmosphere, growing larger and larger in our sight. “No! This is wrong! Alex…” I turned to him, “You have the power to stop it! Come on! Do it!”
Alex met my eyes. *I’m sorry for what I have to do, Vaughn. You have to stop them, I can’t. You have to make them realize that we all have to live together. The crystal will—*
I felt a hand on my shoulder, interrupting Alex. I turned to yell for whoever it was to leave us alone. Yama’s burning light shined now, in the west, getting ever closer. I opened my mouth to yell, and Brand’s charred, burned body rushed from the river’s edge, shoving aside the ice. Reaching for me with a skeletal, blackened claw, he screamed, “Vaughn, wake up!”
My eyes flew open with a gasp. Hands kept me from trying to leap out of the bed. The scenes of the river and the Day fell away to the walls of a hospital room. Dr. Kirksten and Nurse Wells were doing their best to keep me still.
“Where?” I managed to croak out.
“You’re in the hospital, Vaughn. You’ve been out for a few days,” Kirksten said. My confusion slowly cleared away, and I took in the doctor and the nurse, and then the room. Double bed, closet, small half bathroom, and windows next to the beds…yep, I was in the hospital.
I moaned, “Whoa…was it all just a dream?”
I reached up and hesitated when I felt bandages on my head. I said, “What? Did I fall?”
Nurse Wells nodded. “We found you at the edge of the river. What do you remember, Vaughn?”
I opened my mouth, and then closed it. The trestle shattered, I fell…but that strange dream…so real. So…very real. But the trestle shattered. Brand and I fell. He hit the ice below, and then he…the tons of trestle crashed atop of him…damn.
With a pang of grief, I said, “I remember. Brand…he’s dead. I stopped him.”
Kirksten squeezed my shoulder. I sighed and began to sit up. I stopped as pain spiked down my arm and back. My shoulder hurt with every move I made. Thankfully, that wasn’t much. Bandages were tightly wrapped around my shoulder. In fact, I had enough bandages on me to star in a mummy movie. The nurse, after a quick nod from Kirksten, helped me sit up, putting pillows behind my back for support.
Once settled, I asked, “So what’s the damage?”
Kirksten winced. That wasn’t good. He said, “Well, for the most part, you seem all right. We had to give you heavy amounts of magnesium and lithium salts. You were burning up. You seem to be recovering, however. But the shoulder isn’t healing as well as I would like.”
I muttered, “Resilient, not invulnerable…joy. Um…what’s been going on while I’ve been out? How…how bad did things get?”
I caught the cautionary look between the two. I said, “Look, by now it’s probably well known that I did things that I shouldn’t have been able to. So tell me, please?”
Dr. Kirksten smiled and nodded. With a nod to Nurse Wells, he waited until she had finished jotting down information on my medical board and left.
As she walked out, Kirksten called to her. “Keep them occupied…”
Nurse Wells nodded. She said, “Naturally. We seem to have become experts at doing just that…”
When the door closed, the first thing I asked was, “My mom and dad—please tell me they weren’t in the house?”
Kirksten patted my forearm. He said, “They’re fine. They’ve just been busy. You ah…set off things. I’ve decided to tell you something of what’s going on before you’re hit by the wave of questions coming your way.”
I sighed. “Wait, don’t tell me. The FBI, the media, and, oh yeah, the religious nuts all want a piece of me, right?”
Kirksten snorted. “Actually, the religious zealots have backed off since what happened to Ryan Tech and the town. There seems to be a bit of emotional shock going on in the various religious communities...a pity, really.”
Thinking of how I’d been treated by the religious zealots, I said, “Uh, yeah. It’s a pity that I’ll have no more screaming fanatics ready to burn me at the stake. Darn…”
Kirksten looked at me oddly, the shine of his balding head flashing slightly as he grunted. “You really didn’t know?”
I uttered a bemused chuckle, and then said, “Uh, busy saving the planet…sorry. What don’t I know?”
Kirksten said, “Understandable, I suppose, but despite the media’s attempt to push the Avatar as the new messiah, there have been international calls for unity to deal wisely with the issue. Worldwide conferences to study Alex and his actions are still going on. And while he is still the Avatar, people were talking about him as a single messiah…not one among many. Even the Catholic Church has reigned in the good Cardinal Benito Bersculini. It seems he was acting beyond his capacity when he endorsed Joe Andrews and his efforts to push forward the sanctity of Alex Shaw.”
Huh. Things had happened while I was out.
“I think you’d better tell me what’s going on,” I said.
And he did. I could tell he was skipping things, but the gist was that I’d been outed. Son’x was all the rage. So were the Empowered. Controlled as he was by Yasmine, Delmar had done his job to perfection. Like it or not, I was a star again. And this time, there was no going back to my bedroom and hiding until things calmed down. Not when I was hitting fifty million views on YouTube per week.
Then Kirksten said, “One of the questions they’ll be asking about is the Orishai.”
The name startled me. “You’ve heard of the Orishai?”
His nod toward the television was his answer. He went on. “They announced themselves after the news showed Yasmine’s attack at Ryan Tech. After some demonstrations about the veracity of their claims, people know all about the Empowered.”
I groaned. “What else?”
He shook his head and said, “It’s only been a week, but I want you to know what is coming. There’s going to be some stress on you. And…I…”
I looked at him. “What?”
Kirksten’s look of pain was wrenching. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything. Then taking a deep breath, he managed, “Vaughn, I was a fool to believe Kular. She seemed so kind, but underneath, there was all that madness! I should never have let her near you.”
“You didn’t,” I said simply. At his look of confusion, I continued. “Yasmine was a full-on telepath, and she probably pushed things to get you out of the way. Hell, if you want an idea of how cruel she could get, just look for the cameraman who recorded us, and I think a nurse that worked on the same floor Kular did was mind controlled by Yasmine as well.”
“Thomas Delmar? Ah, he’s in ICU. His brain suffered some extreme damage. He’s unresponsive to any stimuli. And a nurse did die on the day of the hospital attack. And she did die from a cerebral hemorrhage. Did Yasmine…?”
I nodded and said, “Yes. Delmar probably won’t recover either. Yasmine just literally overwhelmed him. I know you won’t like hearing this, but we’re very lucky she’s dead. Sorry, but I’m not gonna regret that.”
Kirksten looked disappointed at what I had said. I couldn’t blame him. I would’ve said more, but my hearing was picking up voices in the distance. People were starting to get impatient with Nurse Wells’s stall tactics. I sighed, and patted the doctor on the shoulder.
I said, “Why don’t you let them in? I’ll deal with the questions.”
Giving me a sympathetic smile, Kirksten got up. He said, “All right. And…thank you, Vaughn. It’s my responsibility to keep you healthy. And I failed in Brand’s case. Was…what he did with the town—the madness, the arson—was that Yasmine’s influence?”
I nodded as Kirksten went to leave. It would be what I would tell the world, too. Brand was likely dead. I couldn’t save his life. But damned if I wasn’t going to try to save wha
t little of the good that people remembered about him. Whatever he’d become, thanks to Yasmine, Brand would have made a fantastic hero. Kyle Houseman had taught him too much about life for him to have been otherwise. Kyle’s actions—especially at the end—were what made me decide the things I did, so I never doubted that Brand would have been a good man too. Now I just had to live with the guilt of killing him.
With the opening of the door, the parade began. The most important people to come in were my parents. We hugged while I explained the things that had happened to me. To my surprise, Dana had already clued them in to what had occurred. Mom was a bit mad at me for not telling her. But with all that had happened, she was just happy that I had survived. Dad—well, Dad said I was his son no matter what. That made me feel a whole lot better for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain. It had been my deepest fear—I’d been scared that he and Mom would find out and push me away. They didn’t. And for a small while, we had our moment as a family. And then the world demanded it’s time with me.
I thought I was ready for it, but the next few days became a mental blur as I became the subject of a major interrogation about Ryan Tech, Yasmine, and the Empowered. Although the FBI did most of the questioning, I also had visits from the NSA, the CIA, and people from organizations with letter combinations that I’d never heard of.
However, thanks to the way they questioned me, I’d learned a few things in return. For instance, BJ was a lucky son of a bitch. Although the camera caught him on the scene, not once did it record his face. He was under investigation, though. People saw him fighting the mercenaries. They didn’t see what happened after Delmar dropped the camera.
But Delmar had captured many other scenes, including the fight on the highway. And what he recorded had made it onto the news. The slaughter of so many people by superhuman powers will do that. Oh, and I did, too. I was famous now. So was Nightsword. But he wasn’t talking from his prison cell in some undisclosed place.
The agents didn’t really talk much about him. Instead, they directed their questions toward just why Ryan Tech’s various video recorders were all blank. I didn’t have answers. They didn’t like that.
Now, I could have told them some guy from a mysterious group called the Noumenonii had sabotaged the whole complex. But I didn’t. Bad enough that we had two super groups fighting each other; bringing up a third group might have sent Homeland Security into an apoplectic meltdown.
Still, none of the agents was quite willing to believe that I’d been fighting all by my lonesome. They also didn’t believe me when I told them I didn’t know the ‘good Samaritan’ who helped me out. Delmar never got BJ's face on camera. And by the time the authorities got there, he was gone. Well, maybe that was best. I wouldn't want to spoil his anonymity.
Okay I was tempted, but all I said was that this guy named Shield had told me that he’d heard about Yasmine’s plans and decided to fight for the good guys. They didn’t like my answer. But they didn’t pursue it with me. I was a hero to the public, and none of them wanted to arrest me for obstruction of justice. Arrests like that tend to get out of control with the public involved.
It was also during all those interviews that I found out that the government believed Dane Eisenhawk to be dead. Since they had no body, they thought Rao Kular killed him. Officially, he died a hero. Unofficially, well, I had to wonder. He disappeared into thin air. The question remained.
Was he teleported, or disintegrated? I mean, did the Noumenonii do that? Are they like vampires in a Joss Whedon show? Who knew? They’d be back, just the same. This wasn’t over. BJ had said something about teleportation. If they pulled Ian back, then they’d gotten a dead body. For that alone, I was certain they would return.
But they weren't here right now. And as worrisome as the government was, some of the pressure eased after the President gave a major speech. In it, he warned the Empowered to be careful in the use of their abilities. He got to the big point right away. He was introducing a bill that had one basic stipulation. If an Empowered committed a criminal act with superhuman power, law enforcement would take whatever means necessary to stop that Empowered.
I wasn’t going to argue. I had reservations on its open-endedness and state by state interpretations, but I knew that it could be worse. In some states, there were strong discussions about outlawing all use of ‘neurogenic abilities.’ The most extreme talks were of outlawing the Empowered, period.
Yes, the fears had started, and as usual, the politicians were using those fears to keep their power. Conversely, there now was a strong pro-Empowered movement on the Internet. Mom said I’d have to answer a few thousand emails. Someone even put up a site on the web called the Age of Power Events. I was the top lead story now, and an Internet star.
The words ‘Age of Power’ was now a favorite phrase. Fans used it, non-fans used it, and oh, definitely, politicians were using it. Both for and against the Empowered, there were people who wanted to be in charge of that Age, and right now, they were fighting for control. But I moved past that whole insanity and focused on getting better until Dr. Kirksten let me out of the hospital. This was a good thing, except that I had no home, thanks to Brand. I did however, have a place to live. The whole family did, thanks to Dana. She let us live in her house. I just wish she had stayed in Riverlite, too. She had yet to train me. Go figure.
But she wasn’t happy about what BJ told her. After a single hospital visit to hear my side of the story, she flew off to San Francisco. In kindness, she gave the house over to Mom and Dad while she was gone. What little had survived from Brand’s attack of our home was now in her basement.
Once I got out of the hospital, I gave interviews that the media kept requesting. Once more, I had to deal with the pundits and the obnoxious questions. But, hey, I was nice about it. I gave people the sanitized version of what had happened in Riverlite. I said that I had no idea who Shield was. I just said that he was fighting with me. And I still kept to the story that Brand had been the puppet of an evil, telepathic Empowered.
BJ sent a thank you text for my not revealing him. Dana did, too. Along with that, she said she was staying in San Francisco to investigate the Noumenonii. I think. The text was rather short and cryptic. But she told me I could use a room she had in the back of her house to hold anything personal. I guessed that BJ had told her about the disk and the necklace. I put them there and let it go for the moment while I did the interviews. I was just glad I still had the two things.
I had Nurse Wells to thank for that. When they brought me in, someone had put all my personal items in a storage locker. When the authorities had demanded to look at them, she had left them in the bin. I wasn’t going to argue about it. At the moment, the disk was in the box, and the crystal necklace hung around my neck. If it hid Claire and Alex from the Noumenonii, then it would hide me. Or at least, Ian Devonshire hoped it would. As for the DVD, I just hoped the Noumenonii didn’t have psychic bloodhounds able to track such things—at least until I figured out what to do with it. As time passed, I did come up with a solution. And I had the chance to deal with it come mid-summer when my parents remarried.
Instead of it being a private affair, it turned out that all the people of Riverlite attend and turned it into a major celebration. Mom and Dad didn’t mind. They realized that it would help the people in town to move past the craziness going on since Yama. One change happened with the wedding. Instead of me, Jim Houseman was Best Man, and Karla was Matron of Honor. Me, I just sat in the front row, grinning like a goofy idiot.
“And in name of God, by the authority given to me by the State of Iowa and the United States of America, I now pronounce you man and wife,” said Pastor Parkinson. Dad kissed Mom while the guests whooped with joy. Even Aunt Cassie did, though she was a tad annoyed by the non-denominational pastor. But she put her feelings aside and celebrated along with everyone else. And there was a lot of ‘everyone’ in the crowd. I had a feeling that half the town had taken the day off for this. Once they said t
he words, ‘I do,’ I felt as though a big part of my life had returned to normal.
But it wasn’t quite normal yet. No, to get that, I felt I had to do something to get closure. But for the moment, on a fine spring day in the park near Riverlite, I celebrated as well as I could. I did have fun. How could I not have fun, what with nearly half the town all hanging out around the park?
Just outside of town, the Riverlite Valley Park was essentially a fold in the Earth that lay on the other side of the hills lining Riverlite’s western edge. Go west of it, and the surrounding forest the land would become the hilly farms most people thought of as Iowa. It was private, and though filled with lots of people now, it was still idyllic. I walked through the area, listening to the joy and laughter of the partiers and guests, and I felt the peace that I’d needed for a long while now. There were just a few things missing.
Angela Tursow was one of those things; in spite of the days that passed, I just couldn’t get over her. I tried. But I was stuck with her in my head. Maybe it was just that we hadn’t gotten past the start of something. It might have been the fact that I’d just felt there was someone I could focus my heart on. I hadn’t told anyone, and the one I would have told...well, that would have been Brand.
They never found his body. Days of searching the river turned up nothing. That fact alone made me think of the saying about comic-book villains. If there’s no body, expect the villain to return. But this was reality. Brand was dead, and the river had been covered in ice for miles downstream. It just hadn’t shown up. Not yet. Still…was it a foolish thing to hope for—
My cell phone beeped. Pulling it out of my dress jacket, I saw the text message and put it back. I went through the crowd, politely excusing myself and walked down the path out of the valley to a graveled parking lot. Passing under a large and very old oak tree, I waved to the author of the message. BJ got out of the 2012 Camaro and walked over.
He said, “Vaughn, what’s up? You said you wanted to see me? Here I am.”