“How many times do I have to tell you the same thing, Linc? Death. D-E-A-D: dead. Do you not get what that means? Lights out, it’s over, Connor P. Merrit no longer exists. No more sensations, no more feelings, nothing. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. Everything is over.”
“For like a zillion years, there’s no such thing as a bulletproof person. For as long as guns have existed, everyone who gets shot by one is injured or killed. And before guns, arrows, spears, rocks, whatever. The entire lesson of human history is that if you throw something sharp fast enough, it kills people.”
“Now, a few random blips of information are trying to tell me that everything in human history is wrong, and it actually is possible to be immune to bullets. So I have to weigh that: an experience I can’t explain plus testimony from a bunch of people I don’t know vs. every single solitary bit of evidence from the dawn of humanity. And if those few strangers are wrong? I get to have that whole death experience I was just telling you about. If I trust them, and try it, and they’re wrong, I will never have any other experience ever again.”
Connor concluded, “I’m scared to try it, OK? I’ve done nothing but make bad decisions since this whole thing started. And if I make a bad decision about testing whether or not I’m bulletproof, I die.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing but make bad decisions?’” Linc asked.
Connor replied, “Just look at it. I was wrong to leave the scene of the shooting. I was way out of line to lose control and hit you like I did. I was wrong to …”
He trailed off, realizing there was a lot of this he couldn’t share with Linc. He hadn’t told his roommate about Anna Wales and Ethan Moses. And he didn’t think Linc would consider coming with Sebastian a bad decision.
“Take my word for it,” Connor concluded. “You’ve been coming along with me when I have ideas like leaving the convenience store, and it’s done nothing but lead you into trouble. I’m a bad leader and a bad decision-maker.”
“That’s just stupid, Connor,” Linc replied. “You’ve been making great decisions. They got us here, didn’t they? And this is the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Connor said, “I’ve choked under pressure every time a big decision presented itself. I can’t be trusted to do what’s best for the people who are counting on me.”
Linc said, “Serious, Con. You can’t think like that. I think you should believe in yourself more. That would make the steel-skin thing work for you.”
Connor shook his head and said, “The risk is just too big. And you’re not going to make the risk smaller by nagging me about it.”
The two were silent for a while. Connor had worked himself up and was mad, and Linc sure looked like he was, too. It took half an hour or more before he spoke.
“I guess it’s OK either way,” Linc said. “Sebastian says I did a good job in the dungeon, so I can stay with them. I don’t need you and your power to give me a reason to be here. Maybe I’ll even develop a power of my own by being around the Legion. Sebastian said that was possible. Kyle said he was hoping for the same thing.”
Hearing how excited Linc was about the Legion, Connor definitely didn’t feel safe trying to tell him about leaving tonight. But he was his friend. They’d been friends for years. He couldn’t just leave him – maybe forever – without talking about it.
“Didn’t you think that prisoner control business was pretty nasty?” Connor asked.
Linc shrugged. “Yeah… nobody likes being mean, but it’s for the greater good. The only way the Legion can succeed is by keeping everyone with powers away from the government. We can’t have people just leaving whenever they want to.”
Connor asked, “And that’s worth being a bully? Worth treating people the way all those jerks treated you when you moved here?”
“Hey, I’m not like them!” Lincoln replied, turning red in the face.
Connor held up his hands in surrender. “You’re not. You’re better than them. That’s why I didn’t want to stay and help with that.”
Linc shrugged. “It’s not my favorite thing, but I want to be a part of the Legion, man. These guys rock! They get stuff done. This is the team I want to be on.”
“Sebastian says sometimes that helps people develop their own ability. They have to believe in themselves and want it bad enough to make sacrifices for it. Having to do that Prisoner Control stuff… maybe that’s my sacrifice.”
Connor left it there, and let the conversation end. If Linc was willing to cross that line for a chance to be in the Legion, he would probably cross other lines, too. Like turning in his oldest friend for trying to escape.
Connor said nothing about his plans. Eventually, he left to find his own newly-assigned room to spend some time alone.
CHAPTER TEN
Connor walked out of his room to the common area to look at the clock on the wall there. He felt like it was taking forever to tick. It was only eight in the evening! He had at least four hours before he could make his escape attempt. But time would not move.
He was bored to tears from sitting in his room going over and over the day’s events. His thoughts flitted from Linc’s admiration for the Legion to the fact that people expected him to stop bullets to the fact that there were really people with abilities like that, whether or not he was one of them. Instead of laying on his bed thinking about them, Connor decided to pace around thinking about them.
Besides, it’ll give me a chance to scout out my escape route.
When you had the benefit of telekinesis to move materials, and people who could transform one kind of material into another, construction became a much easier business. It showed in the Legion’s headquarters. Connor gaped at the oak walls, the marble floors, and the brass light fixtures. He had never lived in a more luxurious place, even if the duration of his stay was only going to be about 24 hours.
He passed a couple of Enforcers patrolling. They gave him a suspicious look, but Connor had learned that they looked at everyone like that. Even so, it made his nerves worse. He walked up to the front door and peered out at the darkening sky, then back toward the common area. He smiled and waved at Legionnaires who were patrolling the hallways. They had no reason to suspect he was planning an escape. For all they knew, he was just one more new recruit. The people in the Legion were almost all his age. Pitch was cool, and Spooky was… well, she was nice and enthusiastic, even if it was weird to have her claiming to know the things she did. Sebastian was an arrogant jerk but not all of the people who followed him were.
Connor walked back down the entry hall, through the common area, and turned down one of the tunnels that held people’s bedrooms. He wasn’t heading back to his own place yet; he was just out walking.
Apparently, Kila had the same idea. She was wandering the hallway, arms crossed, muttering, and looking at the floor. She only looked up when she almost collided with Connor. When she did, her frown grew deeper.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Connor backed up a step and said, “I’m just out walking.”
“You’re probably stalking me,” she replied.
Backing up even further, Connor said, “No! No, I’m just trying to think about stuff. I like to walk while I think.”
Kila said, “You mess with my whole life.”
He replied, “What? Me? Why? How? What did I ever do to you? You’ve hated me since the first time I saw you.”
She stepped up to him, confronting him. She was tall for a girl, only a few inches shorter than him.
She poked his chest. From a guy, that would have had Connor picking out undefended areas of his body for a knock-down on the first strike, if it came to fighting. But from her, he just backed up.
“I’m like a princess here,” Kila said. “Everyone wants to be my friend. I write the orders that send them out every morning. I tell Sebastian when someone’s going to cause trouble. I know people’s futures. They all know it. They all want to get on my good side.”
“I don’t want to lose that. You’re not going to take away my ability to see the future. OK? You’re not!”
Connor’s eyes went wide at the diatribe, and he backed up even further, hands raised in front of himself defensively.
He said, “I won’t, I promise. I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
Kila replied, “You and me have a moment coming. You looking at me, in the middle of explosions and gunfire, and me looking at you. And I can’t see past it, OK? It’s getting so I can barely do assignments anymore because I don’t know what’s out there past that moment. I’ll be trying to do assignments, following a thread in someone’s life to see where they go, and instead of showing me anything useful it just fast forwards ahead to you and me, nose to nose on the edge of death. It’s coming. And it’s coming very soon. So I don’t know what you’re doing to me, and I don’t know why, but know this: I will not let you take my ability away. I matter here, and I am not losing that, OK? I am not!”
She was shouting at him by the end, causing a few of the Legionnaires in their rooms to peek out. She stalked away down the hall, leaving Connor to blush at the stares of all the guys and girls.
People realized the show was over. Doors began to gradually close as people went back to their own business.
One young man emerged from behind his door, patted Connor on the back, and said, “Don’t let it get you down, man. Admittedly, she’s gorgeous. All of us think about asking her out at one point. But trying to get anywhere with a girl who can tell the future … it always ends like that, man. She knows you’re going to strike out before you even think about putting a move on her. Don’t take it too hard.”
With one last chummy punch to the shoulder, the boy went back to his room. An Enforcer walked by, giving Connor the evil eye, apparently oblivious to the embarrassing scene that had just played out.
***
Connor’s door creaked when he opened it.
He froze, still in his room, to see if the sound attracted any Enforcers. He left the door exactly as it was when it creaked, about a third of the way open. He went back and sat on his bed. He laid down, the better to seem natural if anyone heard the noise and came to investigate.
Finally he got up again, and slipped out the partially-open door without moving it further. He left it open.
There was nothing to bring with him. His khaki uniform from the government facility was the only possession he had other than the clothes the Legion gave him, and black was better for sneaking than light tan.
Tiptoeing down the unlit hall, he kept his eyes peeled for other people out late at night. The near-total blackness made it almost impossible to see, but in the common room at the far end of this hall there was a bit of light.
He found it hard to believe that there were no Enforcers patrolling.
At regular intervals, he passed electric light fixtures. They weren’t on, but Connor could measure how far he’d come by counting them, if he didn’t miss them in the dark.
It amazed him to think that all of this – the marble floors, the heavy tables in the mess hall, the electric light fixtures mounted to the wall – had been done with Pitch’s ability to move things and the cook’s ability to change one thing into another. Sebastian had taken a few friends with amazing powers and built an underground mansion.
Connor neared the end of the wing that held his room. The nearer he came to the common area where the assignment board stood, the more exposed he felt. There was a bit of light coming from there. That might give him the ability to spot any guards, but it would also give them the ability to spot him.
The marble under his feet felt slippery – almost as if he might slip despite the aggressive tread of the Legion’s combat boots. The rubber squeaked a little bit if he scuffed his boots at all.
Heavy wooden doors lined the hallway. Each was an entrance to someone’s room, just like his and Linc’s. As he snuck past, he got a second look at some of the decorations people put up. Even as dark as it was, he could make out a life-size picture of one famous pop singer on someone’s door. It was the same superstar who sang the top 40 hit that the girl in the convenience store used as a ring tone. Connor thought, if he’d never heard that song, none of this might have happened…
He corralled his thoughts, trying to focus on the task at hand. His path to the outside, as near as he could remember it from when he came in, was to get to the common area, turn right, and follow the wall of that round room gradually going further to the right and forward until he hit the entrance tunnel. Then he would follow that to the outside.
And then? Somehow cross the desert and get back to Vegas with no GPS, no phone, and no real experience navigating by the stars. No problem.
Just as he was about to turn right and enter the common room, Connor felt the strangest thing. A breeze fluttered against his face. He was hundreds of yards from the entrance. There should be no wind down here…
He rounded the corner, and in the meager illumination of the common area, there stood Spark. His bald head reflected the tiny bit of light there was, and his dark eyes bored into Connor as though he could control him just by staring. His nervous habit of fiddling with his earlobe was in full effect.
I knew I shouldn’t have said anything to him about not wanting to stay!
Aloud, Connor whispered, “Spark, now give me a second here. This is between me and Sebastian. There’s no reason for you to get involved. Just let me leave quietly. There’s no reason to sound the alarm.”
Spark shook his head and said, “You don’t understand.”
He paused and added, “I’m coming with you.”
Connor blinked. He said, “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I want out of this place. When you said today that you weren’t sure you wanted to stay here, I got the sense that you weren’t the kind of guy to procrastinate. I waited up so I could come with you.”
“Keep your voice down,” Connor replied. “Why do you want to leave?”
Spark said, “All of Sebastian’s talk about changing the world by gaining power for people with special abilities is crazy. But that’s only a side issue. The real problem is that fight getting out of Area 51.”
Torn between wanting to hurry their escape and concern for Spark, Connor gave in to curiosity.
“What about it?” he asked.
“I killed a man,” Spark replied. “I wasn’t sure about how that lightning worked. But when I wanted it, it came right away. And it hit exactly the man I wanted it to. I murdered him. I’m a murderer.”
A wave of painful emotion swept over Connor. Guilt, shame, and condemnation seemed to all pour out in equal measure.
“Spark… that never would have happened if I hadn’t been a coward. Don’t say that about yourself…”
“Why not? I struck at him deliberately, and he died. I was so mad at them for locking me up! I thought I wanted revenge. But when I got it… it’s horrible. I can’t stop imagining his family. I won’t be a part of this anymore. Sebastian will have to build his army from some other people. I don’t want to be like this.”
Connor nodded and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I should have had the guts to try the door myself. I shouldn’t have made you be the one to do it.”
Spark shook his head and said, “It doesn’t matter now. I want out.”
Connor replied, “OK, Spark. I let you down once before. I won’t do it again. Let’s get out of here.”
The two young men set off together. As they left the common room behind and headed down the tunnel that led to the entrance, Connor could not believe their good fortune. No guards at all. No other Legionnaires were awake. There was no movement in the entire base but him and Spark. It just didn’t seem right.
They reached the entrance to the base and slipped out past the camouflage netting into the desert. That’s when Connor realized he was right. Of course the Enforcers would be out tonight.
And the one on duty tonight was Pitch.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Outside the Legion’s cave, the night air was cool. Connor stared at Pitch, and Pitch stared right back at him.
The latter said, “What the… Connor? What’s up man? What are you doing out here?”
Connor gulped. “Oh hey! Pitch! What’s up man? Um… Spark and I just wanted… well, you know, fresh air…”
Spark said nothing at all, other than to reach for his ear, catch himself, and jerk his hand back down. Pitch gave Connor a stern look.
Connor tried again. “I uh… I get kinda claustrophobic sometimes…”
Pitch’s face took on a pained expression. “Man, you aren’t trying to leave are you? You seemed really cool.”
“No! No, not at all.”
But Connor felt the lie heating up his cheeks, and he was sure it showed in the moonlight. Indeed, Pitch took on a more confrontational stance.
“Connor, look. Just go back inside. We keep a strict control on people going in and out. The government has surveillance satellites, man. Too many infrared signatures out in the middle of the desert at night, and we’ll draw a raid. Just go back inside, man. Go inside, settle down, and be cool. If you can stay cool, I won’t tell Sebastian you tried to leave.”
Lying wasn’t helping him any. Connor did what he should have done from the beginning.
“Pitch, I can’t stay here. The way they were treating that poor kid in the dungeons… that’s not how good guys act, Pitch.”
Pitch asked, “The other TK? Walen Karro? What a wiener! That kid cries all the time.”
Connor set his jaw. “He’s another human being Pitch. No one deserves to be belittled and mocked until they can’t stop sobbing.”
“Aw, come on man! You’re turning deserter over that? So the prisoner control people were a little rough on him. It’s not the end of the world.”
Connor felt sadness creeping up his body. Pitch had seemed nice. They were starting to be friends. But now…
He said, “I’m leaving Pitch. I’m sorry.”
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