by Drew Hayes
“I know, and believe me when I say that is pressure I really wish I didn’t have,” Mary admitted. “But if I’m being honest, I don’t think Globe was lying. I know he’s supposed to be this master of deception and all, so it’s quite possible I’m wrong-”
“But you don’t think you are,” Alice interrupted.
“Yeah. I can’t even explain it, not rationally. I just don’t think he’d go to all that trouble to deceive us.”
“I trust your judgment,” Alice assured her. “I guess this means you’re going back to the woods then.”
“That was pretty much my plan.”
“Good. Do you mind if I tag along?”
Mary jerked her head back in surprise. “Beg pardon?”
Alice sat on Mary’s bed and composed her thoughts for a moment before speaking. “If we assume Globe was telling the truth, then that means my mom is really alive out there somewhere. I need to process that. I need to figure out what my next step from here is. Most of all, I need to not be around my father while I do it, because if she really is out there, then he’s been lying to me for my entire life.”
“Alice, I’d love to have you around, but you know my outdoors life is rougher than you’re accustomed to, right? I hunt my own food, gather my own firewood, walk just about everywhere. The nearest place to get any supplies is ten miles from my trailer.”
“I think that sounds like exactly what I need for right now,” Alice said. “Keeping busy, staying active, not letting all these thoughts overtake my ability to function. Besides, I could use a tougher environment to train in.”
Mary nodded. She would have preferred a bit more solitude over summer - in fact she’d been looking forward to it - but Alice was her closest friend here. If she needed help that only Mary could provide, then Mary was going to take care of her. She would, and had, done the same when the positions were reversed.
“You should let me look over what you packed,” Mary suggested. “I’ll make sure you put in the sort of clothes you’ll need.”
* * *
Ms. Daniels pulled into the parking lot near Melbrook to find one of her expected passengers already waiting for her. She took her time turning off the car and extricating herself from the driver’s seat. From the look on his face and backpack slung over his shoulder, she had a hunch about what this meeting would be about, and she was not looking forward to it.
“Hey there,” she greeted, pulling the taller young man in for a hug. He’d gotten thicker in the shoulders since Christmas - not much of a surprise given his age and the HCP training program. As they pulled apart she realized Vince’s face had changed slightly, too. His jaw was thicker and cheekbones had shifted. He was still handsome, but he was beginning to shed the telltale signs of youth.
“Good morning, Ms. Daniels,” Vince said, polite as ever. “I’m sorry to greet you so suddenly, but I needed to talk with you before you saw the others.”
“You’re going to tell me that you’re not coming home with us this summer, right?”
Vince cocked his head slightly. “How did you know?”
“I got a briefing yesterday about everything that happened. They told me about your... about what happened in the match, even showed me some of the footage, and informed me that Nick was no longer in the program. I’d hoped it wouldn’t weigh on you too much, but when I saw you out here I had a pretty good idea of what was going through your head.”
“I don’t mean to be ungrateful,” Vince said. “You’ve been wonderful to me, welcoming me into your home and treating me like a part of your family. I just need to be by myself for right now. I need to deal with what I saw myself doing.”
“Vince, that wasn’t you.”
“Except that it was. I was in a hallucination, and my emotions were manipulated, but everything I did was my own reaction to it. I was, I am, capable of that kind of destruction. I didn’t even realize my ability allowed me to do some of those things. I’ve been at this for two years with ploddingly slow results, and then in five minutes Nick helped me see more of my potential than in all my classes combined. I can’t waste that. I need to start getting a grip on what my power really is, and how far I can take it. I need to train.”
“You could train in Chicago,” Ms. Daniels pointed out, even though she knew this debate was already lost. She’d married a Hero, after all. She’d seen the look of resolute determination glowing in Vince’s eyes before, and she understood that it meant his mind was set, no matter what.
“Not without endangering a lot of innocent people,” Vince pointed out. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.”
Ms. Daniels pulled him in for another hug, this time squeezing his muscular frame. “You’re a good boy, Vince. No matter what anyone says about you, or the man who raised you, don’t you ever forget that. And once you’re done with this training of yours, I expect to see you at our house. No excuses.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Vince agreed, squeezing her back.
Epilogue
Nicholas Campbell walked through the opulent lobby of the casino and tossed a set of car keys to a man in a red vest.
“Park it somewhere way in the back; I don’t want to see that thing again unless I need it,” he instructed. The valet scampered off without a word, efficiency incarnate. Truthfully, Nicholas would have preferred to have the car demolished, retribution for the ridiculously uncomfortable drive from the Lander campus; however, a car was a car and there was no sense in being wasteful. Maybe he’d need it again one day for a different character. He certainly hoped not. What had possessed him to decide on a Bug in the first place was a mystery, but then again, so was the vast majority of his past two years.
He made it to the elevator where Gerry was waiting. A brief nod passed between the two as they passed the polished metal doors, then they were rising through the world.
“How do you feel?” Gerry asked after a few moments.
“It’s hard to gauge. I can’t really tell a difference, but since I don’t know what I was like before the wipe, that’s not surprising.”
“I see. So is it like there’s a hole in your memories?”
“No, it’s all still there, I just can’t access it,” Nicholas told him. “How can I describe this... it’s as if all the HCP memories have been covered with fog, or ice. They’re blurry, and when I try to focus on them everything slips away.”
“Strange. Ms. Pips will want you to get some tests done just in case,” Gerry informed him.
“I assumed as much. Try and buy me a day, if you can. Did you get all the files together like I asked?”
“Pulled up from storage at your request,” Gerry said. “The last addition arrived by courier two days ago. You’ve got quite a bit of reading ahead of you.”
“At least I enjoy the author’s style,” Nicholas replied with a grin. The elevator dinged and he departed, leaving Gerry to return to his duties.
“Hey, Campbell,” Gerry called before the doors closed. “Ms. Pips wanted me to tell you that it’s good to have you back.”
“Tell her I said, ‘Good to be back’,” Nicholas replied. Once the doors shut he resumed his path down the luxurious hallway to his room. The day was young and he had a lot of work to do.
* * *
Sean Pendleton - he wouldn’t think of himself as a professor again until the new school year began - was lying on his bed, staring at the television. The screen was dark, not due to any underlying technical issue, but because the power was off. He’d worked his way through more whiskey than was healthy last night, intending it to just be a few drinks to settle his brain. That plan had gone out the window when he’d read Nick’s card. It had actually been a birthday card; Sean assumed Nick had used it because the thick paper made it less likely someone like Mr. Numbers would be able to deduce the contents by feeling for a pen’s impression. That was Nick, going five miles further to obfuscate than anyone would ever consider following.
It had been a birthday card with four words written inside, be
low the cartoon duck wishing the recipient a “flocking good” birthday. Four words was all it had taken to send Sean’s wheels off the track. Four words that begged so much for explanation, for clarification, for verification, all of which was now impossible. He finally understood Nick’s apology. His former student was apologizing because whatever bit of information had allowed him to write those words was gone now, and Sean was stuck with only this echo of might-be truth.
The effort was grueling, but Sean slowly raised himself from his bed and walked over to his kitchen table. On it were two pieces of paper, one being the birthday card that had been such a large factor in the hangover Sean was currently dealing with. The other was the piece of paper Blaine had shown him in his cell all those months ago. The paper had a large picture taking up half the space, the rest was used for bits of information about the subject in the photograph. Sean had taken great care of it, even though now it was almost a year out of date. They grew up so fast.
He sat down at the table and pulled both papers over to him. The photo drew his attention first. It truly was amazing how much Alice looked like her mother. His half-sister had always had her own look: Shelby never resembled him and only bore a passing similarity to her fraternal twin, Blake. Both Sean and Blake had taken their features from the mother they all shared, while Shelby took hers from her and Blake’s father. The young girl in the picture definitely took after Shelby, which had just made being around her this year all the harder.
The photo went down as the card came up. Sean had poured over it already, searching for some clue, some hidden message Nick might have left him. He came up short yet again. Nothing but a cartoon duck, a bad pun, and those same four words that filled him with hope and uncertainty in nearly equal measures. Four simple words that changed the entire course of his plans:
“Shelby is still alive.”
* * *
Hershel and his mother made it nearly an hour into the drive before he brought up a thought that he’d been lingering on for some time.
“Mom, do you still keep in contact with any of Titan’s old training partners?”
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, always a safe driver out of habit and necessity, then replied. “I might know of a couple. Mr. Winston down the road used to do lifting exercises with your father from time to time. As for the others, well, plenty of people in our neighborhood have gifts, but few could have trained alongside Titan. Most of his partners were out of state. They had a teleporter on the team at the time, so it wasn’t much of a bother.”
“Oh,” Hershel said, turning his eyes out the window to the passing billboards.
“I assume you wanted to do some training over the summer?”
“Yeah,” Hershel admitted. “Now that Roy is finally seeing progress, he wants to make up for lost time.”
“And what about you?”
“About me,” Hershel echoed, turning his attention back to his mother. “This year I found out that I’m actually a part of my own power. I’ve spent fifteen years feeling like the unwanted tagalong in my own body. I mean, Roy is better at pretty much everything. But now, now I know I am a critical part of it, and that my effort matters. So yeah, I want to keep going, too. I want to help make both of us stronger, because I caught a glimpse of what sort of power gets you to the top of the heap, and Roy and I have serious catching up to do.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Ms. Daniels sighed. “I know someone I can call when we get home. No promises, but I think he’d be willing to take on a temporary student.”
“Is he strong?”
At this Hershel’s mother let out a bark of laughter that filled the car. “Honey, he’s powerful enough to go toe to toe with your father. If he agrees to train you then the question isn’t if you’ll get stronger, the question is whether you’ll last the whole summer.”
* * *
Vince crossed the line of brush and stepped out of the foliage. It had taken him most of the day to walk here, but it had been enjoyable. Of course, he could have just had Mr. Transport drop him off in this spot, but he’d needed a little physical exertion to get his head clear. Besides, he wanted to take his time.
The train tracks were the same as they always were, the metal still warped in several places from the explosion Vince now knew hadn’t claimed his father’s life. Briefly he wondered how that man had escaped, then he surmised some aspect of his power had helped him. It suddenly occurred to Vince that in all the discussion about Globe and his crimes, the silver-haired boy had never stopped to inquire what Globe’s power actually was. It seemed like a glaring oversight in review, but he’d had more pressing concerns.
Vince walked around the area slowly, not drawing attention to himself, not trying to stay hidden either. It was a longshot, he understood that, yet some part of him still demanded he come to this place. To come and see if his father would be waiting for him where their last life together ended. The chance was slim, but still as he looked around and saw nothing, he couldn’t help feeling a weight of disappointment settle in his gut.
“Well, well, looks like I owe Persephone twenty bucks,” said a familiar voice. “I bet you wouldn’t show.”
Vince turned slowly, the rock in his stomach quickly turning into magma. Twenty feet away, still in the outfit he’d been wearing on television, was the man Vince had once known as Coach George.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m the escort, if you’re willing to come,” George replied.
“Where would we be going?”
“Can’t tell you that. Can’t tell you anything. You just have to decide right now if you’re in or not.”
Vince stared at the former-teacher for several moments, then gave a small nod of his head.
“And that’s forty I’m out,” George sighed. “Oh, one more thing. You don’t get to be conscious for the trip.”
That statement set off some alarms in Vince’s head. He reached for the energy inside himself, but before he could summon even a flame, Vince’s vision went blurry and he felt his body grow weak. In a span of seconds it was all he could do to stay standing, and moments later even that was impossible. His consciousness abandoned him as he tumbled toward the ground.
A pair of strong arms caught him before he could bash his head open against a rock; George had crossed the distance between them as soon as Vince had shown signs of dizziness. He set the boy on the ground carefully then pulled the small dart Vince hadn’t even noticed out of the boy’s shoulder. That done, he produced a cell phone from his pocket and punched in a few numbers.
“Hey,” he called gruffly over the phone. “It’s George. I’ve got him, so get my ride over here.”
Almost instantly a crackling sphere of white light appeared a few feet away from him. George closed his phone and hefted the muscular form of Vince Reynolds onto his shoulder. He stepped through the light without any fuss, and moments later it vanished, leaving only a scent of electrical discharge in the air.
And now, a free sample chapter from another Drew Hayes novel:
1.
“Tucker! My office! Now!” Mr. Henderson didn’t even bother to make his already thunderous voice seem civil. Everyone within the distance of his shout, which is to say everyone within a forty cubicle range, could guess that whatever Clint Tucker was being called in for, it likely ended with a boot up his ass: likely a boot with a pink slip attached.
Mr. Henderson stood in the door of his office, his impressive bulk nearly blotting out the silver-haired gentleman behind him. Dr. Caruthers (he didn’t get a Ph.D. in economics to be called Mr. Caruthers thank-you-very-much) stood silently in the shadow of the larger man, content to represent himself physically rather than vocally. His physical representation was quite excellent at that: a tall, lean figure in a suit that cost more than the car any given person on this floor drove. His face was placid and if one didn’t know better, one would have thought him to have a look of kindness. Those who were more informed thought of it as the e
xpression an alligator wears as it drifts through the swamp. It was an expression that conveyed a willingness to wait, but only until there was prey within striking distance.
“Tucker!” Mr. Henderson’s voice roared through the office once more.
Slowly, as if he were savoring every moment he still had in the fluorescent environment, Clint Tucker rose from his cube and began plodding toward the office. He was slightly taller than most of the employees, with a shock of light brown hair and muddy chocolate eyes. The suit he wore was off the rack, the kind of garment Dr. Caruthers would buy for his butler, only to give himself something to chuckle about. Clint was a curious fellow; he always ambled where others rushed and never seemed to sweat the frequent rumors of layoffs swirling about the office.
“You wanted me, Boss?” Clint asked evenly as he stared at the purple vein bulging in the front of Mr. Henderson’s bald head. It swelled and pulsed whenever Mr. Henderson was angry. Once upon a time he’d covered it up with hats and toupees, but over the years Mr. Henderson had come to embrace his vein for the motivational tool it was.
“We need to have a little chat.” Mr. Henderson pronounced ‘chat’ the way mean-spirited judges pronounced maximum sentences.
“Cool.” Clint slid past the larger man and took the nearest unoccupied seat in the contemporary office. There was a large oak desk, motivational posters decorating the walls, and it was filled with natural light from a window with a gorgeous view of the city. Mr. Henderson had fought, back-stabbed, and kissed all manner of ass to procure this office. Publicly he’d say his children were his pride and joy. After a few scotches, though, he could be pressed to admit it was this office.
Mr. Henderson shut the door firmly and took his time working around the desk to his high-backed leather chair. He sat with a considerable thump and looked at the young man across from him. Silence hung in the air as the two older men stared down the youthful face in front of them. Clint was barely twenty-four, hardly more than a baby as far as these two business veterans were concerned. He had his whole life ahead of him, or would have if circumstances were different.