Sons of Thunder

by Bowen Greenwood

As he thought, Sebastian was still speaking. “The Legion is made up of people who have these abnormal abilities or powers. Some have telekinesis, some can control weather, and some are telepathic.”

  “As for me,” Sebastian said, “I can turn invisible. What about you? What’s your power?”

  Connor made a noise that was somewhere between a harrumph and a grunt.

  When Sebastian eyed him curiously, Linc spoke up. “Connor’s skin is impenetrable, man! He’s like steel!”

  Sebastian nodded approvingly and looked back to Connor. “That so?”

  Connor replied, “Look: everybody keeps saying my skin is resistant to bullets, or I’m bulletproof. Maybe it’s true, for all I know. But there’s a huge gulf between someone telling me I’m bulletproof and me getting up and sticking my chest out in front of a Glock and saying, ‘Take your best shot.’”

  He continued, “All those abilities you’re talking about – none of them have any risk. If you want to try to be invisible, or try to move an object with your mind, there’s no risk to you if you fail. You either succeed or you fail, and life goes on.”

  “But if I want to try and see if I’m bulletproof…”

  Sebastian nodded. “You are not the first person to have this problem. It’s one of the first things we’ve become sure of as we try to learn about our abilities. Fear and doubt kill them. If your mind does not accept the truth of what you can do, then you cannot do it.”

  Connor nodded as Sebastian talked.

  “Finally, I’m getting some kind of rational explanation for what’s going on,” Connor said.

  As they rounded a corner in the bare, undecorated hallway of the federal facility, Sebastian looked over his shoulder to raise a curious eyebrow at Connor.

  He said, “I don’t like Flake very much at all. She’s trying to lock me up and study me like a lab rat. But I will say this about her: she does know her science well. She’s usually almost as well informed about this phenomenon as we are. How come you felt like she wasn’t giving you a rational explanation?”

  Connor didn’t answer right away. He hadn’t been thinking about Flake. He’d been thinking about Anna Wales and Ethan Moses and their crazy talk about miracles from God. However, for some reason, he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Sebastian about them yet.

  Instead, he said, “She didn’t really tell me much. Just to trust her; she was going to shoot me and everything would be fine.”

  Sebastian gave a grim chuckle as they reached a heavy iron door. He laid his hand on it but didn’t open it.

  Then he said, “They aren't worthy of your trust. You’re lucky we arrived when we did. Fear and doubt kill your ability. If you didn’t believe you were bulletproof then when Flake shot you, it was going to hurt like blazes. You can't trust her. You can trust me.”

  Sebastian then opened the door and continued down another hallway. Connor shivered involuntarily, thinking how close he had come to being shot.

  He said, “I thought Flake was probably wrong. When I wouldn’t go along with the practical application test, she had a bunch of soldiers subdue me. One of them got me in a choke hold, the other one bent my arm back, and both of those really hurt. If I was invulnerable, I wouldn’t think those would have been so painful.”

  Sebastian nodded as he came up to a final door. It was solid and imposing: made out of metal, with no window.

  Connor waited a moment, and then indicated the door. Sebastian was holding the handle but not opening it.

  “What’s the hold up?” Connor asked.

  “This is the exit from this building,” Sebastian replied. “Out there, no doubt, the alarm from our attack in here has brought soldiers. I assume they’re surrounding the building, waiting for us to come out.”

  Connor said, “I hope your plan for getting out doesn’t require me to be immune to bullets.”

  Linc laughed, and Sebastian gave a tolerant smile. “No. I didn’t know there was anyone in here with that ability when we planned this attack. Do you, by any chance, have any idea where you're being held?”

  Connor, Linc, and a couple other people in the crowd shook their heads in the negative. Connor assumed the others must be the people Flake had talked bout. Others like him, with “abnormal abilities,” who had been held here. One of them was the Healer.

  Sebastian said, “You're in the famous Area 51. This is the place the government hides all their research projects that are a bit too wacky.”

  A murmur went through the other people, and Sebastian grinned.

  He said, “It's really not that big a deal; just an airbase and a wide expanse of unoccupied desert for weapons testing. But it's the airbase that's important. Out there, parked alongside the runway, is a C-130 transport plane. That’s the good news.”

  He paused just long enough to let everyone process the fact that there was another shoe to drop.

  “The bad news,” he said, “is that I’m pretty sure this whole building is surrounded by soldiers. I’m sure the fight we had trying to free you meant someone sounded an alarm, and it’s a safe bet that outside this door is at least a platoon of men with assault rifles.”

  “If we want to get out, we’ll have to fight our way out.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The silence of the assembled young people was almost complete. A few traded nervous looks. Others fidgeted.

  Finally one of the people in the crowd said, “You came in here, didn’t you have a plan for getting out?”

  Sebastian gave the speaker a dirty look.

  “You’re welcome for getting you out of your cell,” he replied with a dose of sarcasm. “And yes, I do have a plan for getting out. Pitch?”

  Connor asked, “What do you mean Pitch?”

  He barely finished the question before another young man stepped out of the crowd following Sebastian. He looked about 18, the same age as Connor and Linc. He was bulky, like a football player or a weightlifter. He was clad in the black fatigues and wore his sandy brown hair a bit on the long side. He nodded at Sebastian.

  “I’m ready; just like we planned.”

  Sebastian looked at Connor and then let his gaze shift over the other people in their group. With a nod he said, “Pitch is telekinetic. He can move stuff with his mind. He seemed like an obvious choice to include in our first operation against the government. His job is throwing heavy things at soldiers. When we were planning this raid, and I outlined his duties, one of the guys started calling him Pitcher. Now we shorten it up to Pitch.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “Anyway, it stuck. So when we came in, we made note of several armored personnel carriers parked not far from this building. The plan for getting out is Pitch is going to throw them at soldiers.”

  Connor gave a low whistle, and Sebastian nodded at him before continuing.

  “I know. Pretty rockin’ way to fight, huh? But I can’t guarantee it’s going to be an instant game-winner. We need to be prepared to battle our way out of here. Who else here can fight?”

  Connor shifted nervously from foot to foot. He could fight alright. Not from any kind of abnormal ability, just because he’d trained for it for years. However he didn’t like the scene back at the firing range. He didn’t like Sebastian telling the girl not to heal the wounded man. He didn’t like this business about people with special powers running the world, and he was confused about whether fighting soldiers of his own government was a good idea.

  Linc, though, saved him from the need to make a decision.

  “Connor and I can! We’re both black belts.” He raised his hand as he called it out.

  Connor sighed.

  At that moment, he felt the oddest thing. There was a breeze suddenly, like a storm coming up. Inside a building, with nothing to move the air, he suddenly felt wind.

  Beside him one of the other people wearing khaki clothes like his spoke up. “My abnormal ability has got to do with weather. I’m not sure about exactly how it works yet but sometimes when I stare at a place, lightning comes down on it.
I guess I can help get us out.”

  Sebastian walked up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the Legion,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  The boy – he shaved his head bald, and his dark eyes stared at Sebastian with a weird intensity – answered with a question of his own. He reached up and tugged on his earlobe nervously, then pointed to the boy with telekinetic abilities.

  “You call him Pitch?”

  Sebastian nodded.

  “Then call me Spark.”

  Sebastian nodded and asked, “Anyone else?”

  No hands raised, so he turned to the girl who – secretly – had healed the soldier. He pointed at her and then at a black haired boy who wore the same black fatigues as Sebastian. His long hair was tied into a pony tail that went past his shoulders.

  “You two. Healers. If anyone goes down, get ‘em back up. The first few moments when we open the door are going to be dangerous.”

  “The rest of the plan goes like this: Everyone press up against one wall or the other, so you’re as far as possible out of the line of fire when we open the door. Pitch will rip the door off its hinges and throw it out at the soldiers. They’ll start firing through the door right away. Pitch’ll start throwing stuff at them until we get a pause in the suppressing fire through the door. That’s when I’ll go invisible and sneak out through the door. Since they won’t be able to see me, it’ll be easy for me to take some of them out one by one. Connor, you and Linc come out and join me as soon as you’re able. A couple karate guys ought to make a difference in the fight out there. When we’ve got them all down, we’ll go steal that C-130 I told you about earlier.”

  He paused and made eye contact with everyone in the group. Then he asked a one word question.

  “Ready?”

  No one responded. They all just lined up on either side of the door, pressing themselves against the wall to be out of the way of any bullets that came through it.

  Connor was snug against the wall but still trying to press himself there tighter. People were about to really, for real, honest to goodness start shooting at him. It occurred to him that Flake had promised him one single bullet, the probability that he would be immune to it, and a fast trip to the hospital for anesthetic if she was wrong. Now he faced many bullets, no confidence that he would survive them, and not much hope of help. Sebastian’s deal no longer looked very good.

  Spark stood next to him, nervously tugging his earlobe.

  Pitch yelled, “Come get some!”

  At the same time, he flung his hand hard at the door, like someone tossing something away. The door flew outward like a missile, and Connor heard screams from whoever it hit. Then the sound of fully automatic weapons drowned out everything else.

  Shouting to be heard over the roar of the gunfire, Pitch kept screaming, “That’s for your test! That’s for your practical application test!”

  With every shout, Connor heard the shrieks of metal twisted by impact and stress, along with the screams of injured human beings.

  Apparently Pitch, too, had once been a guest at this government facility. His own real world test at Flake’s hands had been terrifying. He sympathized with Pitch’s obvious anger about it, but the sounds coming from outside the door…

  Sebastian moved to stand directly in front of Connor and gripped his biceps. He shouted to make himself heard over the din of gunfire.

  “Connor! My plan’s not working! The suppressing fire isn’t dying down! I can’t get out there to fight and neither can anyone else!”

  Connor didn’t know what to say. If the plan wasn’t working, would their escape attempt fail? Would they all be recaptured again? Would it be even worse because they had participated in this? Would he be a real criminal now, instead of just a test subject?

  “Time for you to step up, Connor!” Sebastian shouted. “I need you to be bulletproof. Walk out there and go all karate chop on those soldiers. Thin their numbers until the fire dies down. Pitch is having trouble getting it done all by himself.”

  “Are you crazy?” Connor asked. “I’m not going out in that!”

  As if to punctuate his sentence, a fresh burst of automatic weapons fire bombarded their ears.

  Sebastian replied, “You’re bulletproof, man! You can do this.”

  Connor said, “No way! I don’t want to die.”

  “We need you man! If we don’t get this gunfire dialed back a notch, we don’t escape. All of us are going back to being government lab rats. We need you. You’re bulletproof; it’s time for you to believe in yourself.”

  Connor stopped shouting and spoke so quietly no actual words could be heard. Sebastian had to read his lips.

  “I can’t. I’m afraid.”

  Sebastian shook him by the arms.

  “We can’t do this without you,” he said.

  That’s when, standing next to Connor, Spark interjected. “I can help.”

  Sebastian waved him toward the door. The bald-headed boy inched toward it, trying to get to a position where he could see out but wasn’t in the line of fire.

  Connor felt a horrible spasm of guilt shoot through him as Spark tiptoed into danger while he, Connor, cowered back.

  And then a breeze came up in the room. Spark stood with his eyes closed in the center of a swirl of loose papers and trash caught by the breeze.

  The breeze ramped up, gusting like a storm, and then a painfully bright flash happened outside the door, combined with a boom so loud it hurt their ears. The hair on Connor’s arms stood up.

  Outside the door, a soldier screamed in pain and then fell silent.

  The bolt of lightning produced the result Sebastian wanted. There was a pause in the gunfire. No doubt the soldiers were considering the reality of fighting in a world where the sky itself became a weapon.

  At once Sebastian moved toward the door.

  He said, “I’m going. Linc, you and Connor should follow.”

  And just like that, as soon as he was finished speaking, he was gone; or at least, gone from view. Connor felt the invisible young man brush past him on his way out the door.

  Connor peeked around the edge of the door, saw an M-4 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle tipped upside down only a few feet from where he stood and dashed for it.

  It was barely twenty feet, but it felt like running a mile. Connor’s heart did a drum roll against his ribcage as he ran and dove for cover behind the armored bulk. As he pulled up tight against the metal, he heard gunfire begin again.

  Time became impossible to measure. This was combat – real world attempts to end lives on a large scale. Had it been only seconds since he left the safety of the prison building for subjects with abnormal abilities? Or had he been cowering behind the Bradley for an hour? Connor couldn’t tell.

  Somehow, he forced himself to peek once more around the edge of his shelter, terrified every moment of it that he’d be shot between the eyes.

  Instead, he saw something he would never forget. There were flashes of light from the muzzles of guns coming from a building about twenty yards from him. And then he heard Pitch’s voice shouting, “Here’s a practical application test for you!”

  The Bradley he was hiding behind suddenly flew away from him and dropped cataclysmically onto the building. The entire thing was squashed flat.

  The sight was horrific. Worse was the fact that he was now out in the open. Connor dashed for the building where his sheltering armored vehicle had been thrown. He wasn’t thinking rationally. He just wanted the tank back so he could go back to hiding behind it, and that was where it had gone.

  Halfway there a soldier stepped in front of Connor and leveled a pistol directly at his head. There was less than an inch between his forehead and the barrel.

  “Freeze, freak!”

  Connor did exactly as ordered, his hands coming up beside his head in the position of surrender.

  It was impossible to make out much of what the soldier looked like. A helmet covered his hair, and his baggy combat
fatigues made it hard to know about his build. And there was a pistol occluding Connor’s field of view. The evening was rapidly fading into night, and Connor felt like it was unfair that he couldn’t at least see the man.

  “I want you to call out to your friends,” the man said. “Tell them if they don’t give up, I’m going to kill you.”

  Gradually, his training took hold. Defense against guns and knives was part of what he had studied in his uncle’s dojo. He began to calm himself and prepare for what he’d have to do.

  “Do it!” the soldier shouted. “Do you think I won’t blow your head off? After how many of my men you freaks have killed tonight?”

  Connor took a deep breath and opened his mouth as if to shout as he had been commanded. But instead, he used the distraction of that moment to inch his hands slightly in and down from the surrender position.

  “Hey guys!” he shouted, as if he was following orders.

  And then his right and left hands flashed in like lightning. His right hit the soldier’s hand that was holding the pistol grip. His left hit the barrel, just before the tip. The leverage created by both his hands shoved the pistol barrel to Connor’s right or the soldier’s left.

  The gun went off.

  It went off about 50 degrees past its initial alignment on his forehead, exactly as he had been taught. The heat of the gunpowder hurt, but nowhere near as bad as the bullet would have.

  Connor’s left hand carried through as his right hand closed around the pistol grip. He stepped back, stripping the soldier of his weapon, covering it to prevent any attempt to retake it by the soldier, who was staring in surprise.

  Shooting him would have been so easy. The man had threatened his life. He was justified. The weapon had already discharged once, so Connor knew the safety wasn’t on. All he had to do was pull the trigger.

  Never before in his life had he been in a position where killing a man would be so simple.

  Instead, Connor jabbed with his left hand. Instead of a fist, he held the hand in a tight flat position and poked as hard as he could into the soldier’s throat.

  The man went over at the waist, gagging.