“I doubt they’re going to be able to find us,” Melanie muttered.
“That isn’t the point,” he snapped, “They’re aware of us, which means they’re going to become far more cautious and it’ll be far more difficult when the time comes to deal with them.”
“Deal w-with them?”
“All this will do is cause them to become cautious,” he mused, “Now that they know they can be stopped, they’re going to escalate things…” Mizuno scowled and retrieved a small notepad from his coat, reclined in his seat, and focused on his notes for the rest of the drive to the airport.
---*---
4:45 PM
Bothell, Washington
A cool breeze washed over Drake and Ian while they sat on Ian’s front porch. They each held a can of soda in their hands, an orange soda for Ian and a can of grape soda for Drake. They enjoyed the sunny day in contrast to the rainy night they experienced the previous evening.
“You haven’t heard from Nick, have you?” Ian asked.
Drake shook his head and said no one had. “I talked to Jordan who hasn’t heard anything and he spoke to Amy and she hasn’t heard anything either.” Drake took a sip of his drink and added, “She’s worried about him. She tried calling him a few times but he hasn’t answered.”
“Did you try?”
He nodded. “Once,” he paused to take another drink and said he only got the voicemail.
“The same thing happened to me,” Ian sighed.
“You know it isn’t your fault that he’s missing,” Drake told him. “He was going to find out about it eventually.”
“I should have told him though.”
Drake didn’t agree. “It doesn’t really matter who he heard it from because the result would have been the same.”
The boys sat quietly as a few trucks drove past. Drake glanced over at Ian and noticed how low he kept his eyes and hardly looked anywhere past the soda can in his hands. Ian’s grip on the fragile aluminum can bent the figure slightly.
“Do you think I should have lied to him?” Ian asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you think I shouldn’t have mentioned that I saw him, or that I thought I saw him kill Victor?”
Drake told him he wasn’t sure what to tell him. He looked up at the porch lights which were off when they stepped outside to talk, yet he noted their sudden flickering.
“I just feel like it’s my fault he’s taken off.”
“He isn’t gone,” Drake told him while he kept his eyes on the lights above. “He’s probably just venting somewhere and he’ll turn up in a day or two.”
Ian still frowned though. “I still feel guilty.”
Drake returned his focus on their conversation and changed the subject. “When are you leaving?”
Ian shrugged, “It’ll be awhile.”
“Why?”
“The apartment I was going to move into was next to the building that was bombed last week,” Ian told him.
“Oh.”
Ian let out a small breath and took a drink of his orange soda before he set it back down and gripped it with both hands again. “So who was that girl you spent so much time with last night?”
Drake sipped his soda and cleared his throat, “Her name’s Hiromi Tsukahara. She’s an exchange student from Kagoshima, she’ll be going to Bothell High this year, and I’m hoping to see her again soon.”
Ian smiled for once and asked, “Is she a pretty cool girl?”
“I think so.” Drake noticed the lights stopped flashing before he continued, “She’s into videogames and happens to love the Creeping Darkness series.”
Ian looked at him and asked, “Does she realize who you are?”
“You mean that I’m the son of the head of Winchester Enterprises?” Ian nodded. Drake raised his can up to his lips and quickly muttered that she didn’t know before he drank from his beverage.
“When are you going to tell her?”
Drake wasn’t sure. He felt he should have told her at the party when they met, but he didn’t want it to seem that he tried to use his status to impress her. He felt he needed to impress her on his own, which he planned to do, and hoped that he could tell her without seeming like he hid something from her from the start.
The two young men stared off at the clouds on the eastern horizon as they drifted toward the Cascade Mountains.
---*---
10:48 PM
Baltimore, Maryland
Ryan woke suddenly as he believed he heard a shriek. He propped himself up in his bed, listened intently, yet heard nothing. He felt his pulse throbbing in his head and neck, found a cold sweat over him, and felt faint.
The room was pitch dark and even though the window at the end of the room was open it failed to let in very much light. Ryan stopped. He slowly looked back over to the window and realized it was open.
His door opened, the light was flicked on, and a young nurse asked if everything was alright. Ryan looked at her and asked, “Is that window supposed to open?”
The young woman showed her confusion and asked, “That window?” Ryan nodded. “The windows don’t open Mister Sage.”
He glanced back to correct her but realized she was right. The window was built into the corner of the building and had no way to open. Ryan rubbed his eyes and apologized. “I…I must have dreamt it.”
She smiled, “It’s okay. But I heard you scream, is everything alright?”
“I was the one who screamed?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “You actually woke a few of the others.”
He apologized again and told her he must have had a nightmare as he didn’t realize he cried out. The nurse said it was fine, shut the light off, and left.
The air was much colder than he remembered it was earlier. He guessed it was either the air-conditioning or just some sort of added measure to keep the hospital environment sterile. Ryan wasn’t sure. It might have been his imagination too.
“You need to rest.”
Ryan felt his heart race again. He took a cautious look around his room but found no one. “Who are you?”
“Trust me, rest.”
“I don’t know you. Tell me who you are first,” he told the voice, (even though he wasn’t entirely sure he really wanted to know).
“Trust me.”
“Show me who you are.”
“Trust me.”
“No.”
Another cry pierced the air. Ryan’s eyes shot to the window. It stood open, against the wall, and a crow sat on the windowsill. Ryan called for the nurse who walked in, turned the light back on, and asked him what the matter was.
“Th-There’s a bird over there at the window,” he started. “Could you get rid of it and close the window?”
The young woman looked at the window again. It was built into the wall as it’d always been and there wasn’t any sign of a bird. “Mister Sage, are you alright?”
“Send her away,” the voice whispered. “Trust me, send her away and rest.”
“Shut up I don’t need any sleep!” he barked.
“Mister Sage?”
“Trust me. Sleep.”
“Shut up!”
“Mister Sage,” the young nurse shouted. “Who are you talking to?”
Ryan looked back at the window as it had righted itself once more and he cursed. “You’re doing this aren’t you?” he snapped at the voice. “Who are you?”
“Who are you talking to Mister Sage?”
Ryan glared at her, “That voice, who else?”
“What voice?”
“The voice!” he yelled. “The one that says I need sleep! The one that tells me…tells me…” he cautiously looked at the woman and felt his pulse race again. He cracked a smile and asked her to leave. She hesitated but told him she was going to call his doctor. The voice returned, alarmed, “No, this wasn’t supposed to happen…”
“What isn’t?”
“There isn’t any time left; you must
believe in me.”
The window of his room was abruptly torn out of the building and a swirling flock of black crows flew into the room and attacked him. They tore through the bed sheets and eventually past the bandages at his left knee which revealed the bloodied stump of his leg. The crows proceeded to bite, tear, and claw through his skin and to the bone and hastily merged together to reform his leg. Flesh, bone, nerves, blood, and all were there, and just in time as Doctor Grayson and two large male nurses entered. They found Ryan on the floor with his repaired leg, dozens of crows, and a massive hole in the wall of their building.
“Mister Sage,” Grayson began, “What happened?”
“Don’t say a word,” the voice instructed him. “You need to leave.”
“What?”
Grayson repeated his question.
“Leave, now.”
“How?”
“Who are you talking to Sage?”
“The wall.”
“No.”
“Mister Sage.”
“Trust me.”
“No.”
“Sage!”
“Trust me!”
The men tried to seize Ryan, but he finally believed in the voice and fled through the hole in the wall. Feathers fell beneath his feet when he stepped on the glass from the window that lay scattered across the floor. He jumped out of the building and noticed something for the first time since he woke in the hospital. He was completely at peace. He wasn’t concerned with the sudden events or the probability of falling to his death. Ryan fell two stories before the crows from the building caught up with him and circled round him. His body burst into a flock of a dozen crows and all of the birds fled into the Baltimore twilight.
---*---
Chapter 10
August 27th, 2029
8:30 AM
Mumbai, India
The three gathered members of Mizuno’s group sat on the steps of a large Romanesque building that reminded Nick of some of the monuments he caught glimpses of two days earlier while in Washington DC. In three days he’d left his home in Washington State and traveled to the other end of the world. Before his sudden voyage with Mizuno, the furthest Nick had ever traveled was to Oregon for a camping trip. Beyond that he had never paid any mind to travelling.
Since it was still rather early in the day it was far cooler than Nick remembered it being after he stepped off the plane. He only wore his jeans and his tee-shirt and opted to leave his jacket in the room they stayed at. Nick looked at Mizuno, who sat nearby on the tiled steps; Mizuno wore his usual attire of slacks, a dress shirt, his trench coat, gloves, and none of it seemed to faze him at all.
“Aren’t y-you–” Nick stopped and remembered the exercise Mizuno plotted out. He took a breath and slowly repeated his question from the beginning, “Aren’t you exhausted?”
Mizuno shook his head, “Why would I be? We haven’t done anything yet.”
“No, I-I mean b–” Nick stopped again and repeated the process, “I mean aren’t you tired because of the heat and all of the clothes you’re wearing?”
Mizuno grinned. He retrieved his notepad and a pen from his coat, flipped to the page he left off on, took some notes, flipped it closed, stashed both items in his coat again, and answered, “I spent a few years in this area of the world and in this same general getup, so I’m accustomed to this kind of heat. Besides, it’s not even that warm out at the moment.”
Melanie sat on Mizuno’s right and spent her time watching the cars, motorcycles, buses, mopeds, and people pass by. They waited for someone to arrive, someone Nick didn’t know, and Melanie seemed eager to get out of the open city before the heat truly hit them. She wore shorts, a short sleeved shirt, open toed sandals, and sunglasses.
“Did you have to wear that when you were here last?” she asked Mizuno.
“No,” he laced his fingers together and rested his elbows on his knees. He looked at the people as they passed as well, though not in the same method; Melanie searched for someone and from what Nick knew about Mizuno (however little it was) he doubted Mizuno scanned the few people who passed by simply to see if any one of them was their comrade. Mizuno continued, “I chose to.”
Nick frowned, “Why?”
“Because I knew I would inevitably be in places and situations where the temperature would be a factor and if it was a drastic heat I would need to be able to adapt in order to better accomplish my goals.” He sighed slightly, “Even with my abilities I’m still human and as such I still felt the effects of hot and cold and each of those varying degrees was enough to sway me in whatever endeavor I took.”
“It ‘was’ enough?” Nick echoed.
Mizuno nodded, “I got over it.”
“How do you l-learn…How do you learn to ignore something like heat?”
He continued to look out at anyone who passed by the building but spoke directly to Nick, “The mind is an extremely powerful tool and if one is able to utilize it properly they can learn to ignore whatever they want, be it temperature, hunger, thirst, pain, pleasure, desire, hatred, sorrow…” his eyes flashed, “You get the idea.”
“So where is Mithra?” Melanie asked to change the subject to something she felt was far more relevant.
“He had some family matter to attend to before he could join us here, but from my estimation he’ll be here shortly,” Mizuno told her.
Nick glanced back at the building behind him and tried to read the words on the wall near the top of the roof.
“It says, ‘The Asiatic Society, Mumbai, eighteen-oh-four, State Central Library, Town Hall,’” Mizuno told him.
“So it’s a library?”
He nodded, “Among other things. At the moment it’s a meeting place for the three of us and Mithra. It does however house the sole remaining original copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, as the last other original was destroyed in a terrorist attack seven years ago.”
“Why did you have us meet here though?” Melanie asked. “Mithra could have just met us at our hotel, or better yet we could have called him and told him to meet us in America.”
Mizuno shook his head, “He’s not the only reason we’re here.”
“What?” she scowled, “Then why are we here?”
He ignored her.
A pudgy man in khakis, a short sleeved shirt with a collar and tie, and glasses walked up to them. He had short, curly black hair, a duffel bag slung over his left shoulder, and a perplexed look once he saw Nick.
“Who is this boy?” he asked Melanie.
“Nick Jacobs,” Mizuno answered for her. “Nick, this is Mithra Mehra.”
Mithra gave a slight wave to the young man and asked, “So what’s his power Melanie?”
She shrugged, “I have no idea. Mizuno hasn’t told me anything as usual.”
Mithra then asked Nick the same question but Nick only shook his head, “I-I don’t…I don’t know yet.”
“What? How can you not know?”
“We haven’t gone over it yet, but we will soon,” Mizuno explained.
Mithra took a breath and nodded. “Was it you who stopped the Dáfù attack in America?”
“Yes. It’s odd though, their attacks have ceased entirely.”
“What do you think that means?” Melanie asked.
“I assume they’re shocked that someone was able to counter them at all,” he started, “Yet at the same time I fear they might be plotting some other attack to try to reestablish themselves as a dominant terrorist faction.”
“Did you learn anything from the man in Washington DC?” Mithra asked, “Anything that could lead us to figuring out who is behind the group?” Mithra asked that because the Dáfù hierarchy was unknown then. Their leader, or possibly leaders, were unknown, even to its members.
“No. Nothing. Whatever method of communication they use…Well no one can interfere or trace it. They’ve got someone good on their side,” Mizuno answered.
“A-Any…Anyway, shouldn’t we be going?” Nick asked.
/> “No, we have one more stop.”
“Really?” Mithra asked, “Why didn’t you just take care of it before I arrived?”
“I needed to buy him time to set everything up rather than have us wait for him to get ready,” Mizuno told him.
Mithra cocked an eye brown and asked, “Who are you talking about?”
“You’ll see once we arrive.”
“Then where are we heading?”
“The main branch of the State Bank of India.”
Mithra scowled, “My work?” Mizuno nodded. “Why are we meeting someone there?”
“We’re actually going to meet him on to roof of your building,” Mizuno explained. “I’ve asked this individual to assist Nick with honing his ability.”
At that revelation all three members looked at Mizuno. Melanie asked, “You know what his power is?”
“I do.”
“What is it?” asked Mithra.
Mizuno stood up and started down the stairs toward the street. He only told them they’d see in a short while and headed in the direction of the State Bank of India building.
---*---
4:11 AM
London, England
Audrey hadn’t slept much since the incident. She was powerless in life and in her dreams, and Jason needed her in both. Even when she did take the time to rest it did little to aid her health or fatigue. Her mother insisted she sleep and Audrey tried her hardest to oblige, but terror filled nights didn’t soothe her whatsoever.
Jason was always the one awake because of his insomnia. He rarely slept more than a few hours each night and as such he would leave for runs or would try to busy himself with reading. It bothered her when they began to live together but over time she grew to accept it and completely ignore it. All she thought of was whether he was awake then or if he managed to find sleep.
Her sister Suzy quietly opened the door and crept in. She walked over to Audrey and took a seat next to her. Suzy gave her a quiet hug and handed her a cell phone. “His doctor called and wanted to speak with you. Don’t worry about getting the phone back to me, just keep it with you in case she needs to get in touch with you again,” she told her sleepily.
Audrey thanked her and answered the call.
Regenesis (Book 1): Impact Page 22