by C. S. Won
Andrea brought her index finger and thumb close together. A spark of electricity curled between them, bridging the two. “I can see why some people think this sort of power can be corrupting. The things some of us can do—it makes you feel strong. That sense of strength can be intoxicating, I admit.” She pressed her fingers together, squelching the electricity in a sparkling mist. “Sometimes I feel like my powers are something I shouldn’t even have, like I somehow stole it.”
“It’s as much a part of who you are as the color of your hair, or the shape of your nose. Eventually, we’ll have to accept that fact, as does the rest of the world. There’s no going back to the old days. We have to learn how to coexist. If we don’t, then there won’t be much of a future for either human or neo-human.”
“How did you first learn about your powers?” Andrea asked.
“When I started breaking faucet handles and doorknobs by accident, I realized something might have been slightly off.”
“Slightly off, he says.”
“What about you?”
She folded her hands over the other and massaged her fingers. “I woke up one night to the sounds of a struggle in my backyard. When I looked out my window, I saw my dog fighting with what looked like a raccoon. I went outside with a broom to try to fight it away, but the little monster lunged right at me, bright fangs gleaming from his mouth. I closed my eyes and instinctively threw my hands up, screaming like an idiot, but then I felt this sudden gust of heat, along with a loud, crackling pop.” She spread her arms apart to reenact what was happening. “When I opened my eyes, my entire body was covered head to toe in electricity, and the entire backyard was lit up in this bright blue light.”
“And the raccoon?”
“A blackened carcass melting in my backyard. And the stench. My god, I’ll never forget that smell.”
“What did you do after?”
“I panicked, because I had no idea what I just did or what had happened. I quickly buried the raccoon, went back to bed, and convinced myself that it was all just a bad dream. But in the days after, my powers kept flaring up at random times, like when I was at work, or at the grocery store, or jogging in the park, and at that point it was clear to me that the bad dream was all too real. I went to a few doctors to see what was going on, but they couldn’t really find anything too abnormal.”
“Did you tell the doctors about your powers?”
“No, because I didn’t want to scare them.”
“You didn’t fry anything in these clinics?”
“By then I gained a degree of control over my powers, so there were no more electrical outbursts. And thank goodness for that. Last thing I wanted to do was fry an actual person.” She chuckled at that, before settling into silence. She picked up a small rock that had somehow made its way onto the roof and tossed it as an offering to the night. “All this talk about your brother made me curious. What’s he like?”
Jae opened his mouth to speak, but struggled to find the words, much to his surprise. The years had dulled his memories. “It’s hard to remember much of anything, to be honest. He left home when I was nine, so he’s actually been out of my life longer than he’s been in it.” Just saying that astonished him. Has it really been that long? “But from what I can remember, I remember fondly. He treated me well, like an older brother should, and he loved our parents, especially our mother. She doted on him—a bit too much my father always thought—but he was her first child, so it made sense that she did.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It was, but all that love can be devastating if it’s taken away from you. Probably why Han ran off and took that job with the government. He had to get away from it all. Sometimes I get angry at him for making that choice, but I know I probably would have done the same if I were in his shoes. God knows the number of times I wanted to bury myself in a dark hole after my mom died.”
“How did you cope?”
“Time. Lots and lots of time, along with my dad, friends, and family. They were all a great help.” And Madeline. I don’t know what I would have done without her. Jae felt a knot tighten in his throat.
“I’m glad you were able to get through your pain. A strong support system can be so vital.” Andrea smiled, but there was a touch of sadness to it. Was she remembering how difficult things were when her mother died?
“There’s always someone we can lean on, even if you don’t think so.”
Andrea smiled slightly, averting her gaze for a moment before looking back at him. “Well, I guess I can see why you want to save your brother. He sounds like a swell guy.”
“He was, twenty years ago. Now, however? That’s yet to be determined. A lot can change in twenty years.”
“Do you really believe your brother can stop Morgan?”
“I don’t know, but he might be able to discredit him, which hopefully will achieve the same thing. Morgan went to great lengths just to find my brother, so at the very least Han is important to him. He’s bound to know the many skeletons rattling around in Morgan’s closet.”
“What if he doesn’t know anything?”
Jae hadn’t thought of that possibility. Finding Han and hoping he could turn the tide was the only game plan they had. If they failed to rescue Han, or if Han didn’t have any applicable information that could stop Morgan—well, it was a scenario Jae simply hadn’t given much thought to. Han had to know something. How could he not after working under Morgan for so many years? “We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.”
Andrea sat up, dusted herself off, then pushed out a groan as she stretched her arms over her head.
“Are you leaving?” Jae asked.
“It’s getting late, and I need some rest. Been a long, weird day. What about you?”
“I’ll be in soon.”
“There’s some leftover rice and beans, if you’re hungry.” She lingered for a few moments longer, before climbing down from the roof and disappearing over the edge. As the front door opened and clicked shut, leaving Jae alone in the pitch-black darkness, he thought of the future, and Han’s role in all this. If Han didn’t have any dirt on Morgan Duffy, therefore nixing any idea of stifling his agenda, then would things continue as they were, with escalated tensions and violent conflicts, until things finally reached a tipping point and spilled over into a full-blown war?
Han has to know something. He has to.
Jae stepped off the roof, dust kicking up when he landed on the ground, and went inside the cabin, the door’s hinges whispering as it closed behind him. Candles gave the interior a soft, warm glow, circles of illumination fending off the darkness, and when he went to the kitchen, where the leftover rice and beans Andrea had mentioned were settling on the stove, he saw Tobin sitting at a well-worn, wooden dining table, a laptop and a stack of papers scattered before him, with a lone candle to give him light. Tobin looked up at Jae as he approached, and nodded. Jae returned the gesture and took the rice and beans off the stove. Picking up a spoon, he sat across from Tobin.
“Any luck finding Han?” Jae asked. He shoveled in a spoonful of his dinner. Cold, but tasty enough.
Tobin leaned back in his seat with a sigh and crossed his arms. “I’ve sent coded signals to all of my contacts to see if they knew anything.”
“And?”
“Usually, in a scenario like this, most will respond back within the hour. Four hours have passed, and I haven’t received a single response back yet. That’s obviously not good. At this point, I have to assume Han gave up our network under duress.”
Jae stopped eating. “Under duress? You mean torture?”
“Morgan will do whatever he needs to in order to shrink our world.”
What sort of torture could they . . . ? Jae stopped himself. He didn’t want to think of the possibilities. Just the mere suggestion of it almost made him snap his spoon in two.
“There are other avenues I can pursue, so don’t give up hope yet.” Tobin gathered his papers together.
“
Are we safe here?”
“They won’t find us here.”
“How do you know?”
“Sanctuaries like these were my domain, and Han was always adamant in not knowing where all of our havens were, just in case something like this ever happened.”
“You planned for this?”
“We’d be stupid not to. All possibilities had to be considered.” Tobin looked apologetic. “I’m doing all I can to find him.”
Jae ate another spoonful of his dinner. “How did you meet Han?”
Tobin closed his laptop. “He contacted me several years ago, when I used to work for Morgan Duffy’s PMC.”
Jae’s eyes widened. “You were a part of Red Mars?”
Tobin nodded. “Wet work. Renditions. Torture. Intimidation. Whatever they asked of me, I did. I was the one they called in when things needed to be done with no questions asked, and in circumstances that required plausible deniability. Black ops and things of that nature. All of our contracts were drafted up by different federal agencies—CIA, NSA, DOD, and Homeland Security, just to name a few. Morgan had great working relations with many string-pullers in the government, so we never lacked for work.” Past sins emerged in the lines of Tobin’s face. Suddenly, he looked very tired. “I’m proud of none of it.”
Jae set his spoon down. “How does my brother factor into all of this?”
“During my waning years at Red Mars, the conscience voice in my head started to get a bit louder, and the more blood I spilled, the heavier my guilt became. Money may have been good, but it came at great cost, and eventually it came to a point where I wanted to get out. But one does not simply walk away from all of this, especially when your employer is Morgan Duffy.”
“The conscientious mercenary. And here I thought something like that only existed in the movies.”
“It’s not as uncommon as you think. I’m not the first, nor will I be the last to have conflicting thoughts about our trade.”
“Then why get into it in the first place?”
“I didn’t wake up one day and decide I wanted to hurt people for a living. Growing up, I had hopes and dreams just like everyone else, but dreams tend to be unobtainable, not to mention unsustainable. I can’t feed and house myself with just fantasies alone.” Tobin grumbled, years of frustration forming on his face. “I had a long list of things I wanted to be before I found myself doing bloody work—surfer, musician, artist—but no amount of hard work brought me closer to my dreams. So with the lack of any real opportunity or way forward, I decided to just join the military, the career choice of many errant, lost teenagers such as myself, thinking I could just use my time here to travel the world as a sailor or something and come home with a few cool stories. But once enlisted, I discovered that I had a talent many in my field coveted—inflicting pain. I made a name for myself and quickly rose through the ranks at breakneck speed, and eventually my many bloody deeds reached Morgan’s ears, who promptly recruited me once I was discharged.” Tobin set the papers in a neat stack and pushed it aside. “But the work wasn’t me. It never was. I never enjoyed what I was capable of doing. It was a curse, ruining lives. I wanted out, and that’s when your brother showed up and provided a solution”
“He got you out?”
“Not in the way you think. Han could not, unfortunately, facilitate an exit for me, as that was something beyond his capabilities, but he did offer me the next best thing. In exchange for helping him bring down Morgan, and by extension, exposing our government’s many crimes, he offered atonement, a chance to repair what I had inflicted upon the world.”
“To make things right.”
“I agreed to work with him without hesitation.”
“Does Han know who activated the Trigger?”
Tobin took a moment. “No, but ultimately it doesn’t matter, because in the end, it was Morgan and his friends who militarized it. The problems we suffer today originated from their short-sighted machinations. They were fools for tampering with something they shouldn’t have. Rather than open up Pandora’s Box, they should have destroyed everything that fateful night in Roswell.” He stood and picked up his laptop and papers. “I will intensify my search for your brother tomorrow. I won’t stop until I find him.”
Tobin tucked the laptop and papers under his arm and departed. Jae watched him leave, disappearing into the darkness, his footsteps whispering across the floor. Jae picked up his spoon and finished the rest of his dinner.
Chapter Three
The iron was worn and rusted. Many grooves and indentations were cut into the metal, which made for an uneven grip. The grey paint had long eroded away, now tinted with a copper discoloration. It even had a slight odor, seasoned by years of sweat, chalk, and human skin. But as Jae lifted the barbell with one hand, curling it in a steady, consistent motion, and his bare torso cooking beneath the scorching sun, equipment aesthetics was the last thing on his mind. Conflict dawned on the horizon, and he needed to get stronger, more powerful. He could not allow what happened at the hotel to happen again. He was beaten and left useless. He had to be better prepared the next time they met.
Never again, he told himself, teeth gritted as he continued to curl.
Andrea stepped out from the cabin, the door clanging shut behind her, and leaned against its dusty walls. She wore shorts that defined every bit of the word shorts, along with worn and dirtied sandals, and a buttoned-up shirt tied up to show her midriff.
“Are you trying to distract me?” Jae asked her.
“Are you?” She eyed his tanning, sweaty torso, then at the barbell he was lifting. “How much weight is that?”
Jae set the barbell down and crunched the numbers. “Six hundred seventy-five pounds, I think.”
Andrea’s eyes widened. “All with just one hand?”
“It’s actually more than six hundred seventy-five, but I don’t know how much these things weigh.” The thick chains wrapped around the weights of the barbell clinked as he kicked them. “Maybe closer to seven hundred and fifty pounds once these are accounted for.”
“Good lord. And what about those?”
Scattered a few yards behind him was a collection of vehicles, some old and some new, ranging in different sizes, from a small, convertible coupe, to a freight truck. Next to those was a pile of industrial machinery, black and uniform, some of them bigger than the smaller cars. Jae didn’t know what they were called or what their purpose used to be, but it didn’t really matter. The only thing he cared about was how heavy they were.
“Just some more stuff that I can lift,” Jae said.
“Who brought them here?” Andrea asked.
“Tobin. I asked him if he could find anything heavy for me, and this is what he brought back.” Jae lifted the barbell back up with one hand and pushed it over his head.
“Were you always this strong?”
“Not when I first got my powers. I would have struggled with something like this initially.” He dropped the barbell with a loud rattle, red dust kicking up upon impact. The ground even shook a little.
“You seem plenty strong enough to me,” she said.
“I can always get stronger.”
Andrea gestured at his chest, then touched her own chest, indicating the location of the scar she had left him. “It’s healing up nicely. You can barely notice it now.”
Jae looked at his chest. She was right. A faint tint was all that remained of it, a slight reminder to show that he had been wounded once. He remembered how close to death he seemed, and the smell of blood and smoke that clung to the air. He still wasn’t sure how he survived. The electricity had pierced him, that much he was certain. He should have been dead, or at the very least rendered unconscious for an extended period. But the injury was more of an inconvenience, akin to getting the wind knocked out of him, and as he brushed his fingers against the scar, formed so quickly after he had been attacked, he began to wonder.
“Attack me,” Jae said.
Andrea tilted her head, confused
. “Excuse me?”
“Attack me.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“There’s something I want to test.”
“Test what exactly?”
“My durability.” Jae spun his finger around. “Charge up your batteries and give me a jolt.”
“Is the heat getting to you? I think you need to come inside and drink some water. Cool off for a bit.”
“Don’t go all out or anything but serve up something nice and strong.” Jae rotated his neck, took a deep breath in, then stuck his chest out. “Let’s do it. I’m ready.”
“Okay. I’m going to go inside and get you a cold glass of water, because—”
“When you first attacked me, I should have been mortally wounded. I was mortally wounded. You even said yourself that you saw a lot of blood, right? But I lived through it somehow, with only a small scar.”
“I mean, sure, I was surprised you were somehow still standing. I did give you a direct hit, after all. But still, I—”
“And I had no right to live after my fight with Pax, not after that beat down he gave me, but I somehow lived through it with only a few bruises and a broken jaw. A normal person would have been crippled, maybe even dead.”
“What are you trying to say? That you’re invincible or something?”
“Give me a shock, and we’ll find out.”
“Listen, I know you have insane strength, but that doesn’t mean you’re also invulnerable. I mean, what if something goes wrong? We don’t have that healer guy around to patch you up.”
“We’ll start small then and work our way up.” Jae looked around and saw a thick piece of wood on the ground a few feet away from him. He picked it up, checked it for any loose nails or splinters, then handed it to Andrea. “Here. Swing it as hard as you can.”