by Agster, Joe
After four days of waiting, they return to the decrepit street once again. After rehashing the plan with Mason, Friend sets out again. With a few minutes to spare before the chase makes it way to their street, he scans for a few key strategic positions, behind various cars, trees, and fences, all for the purpose of teleporting.
The teenager surfaces in his frenzied run, and Friend grabs him and teleports him to the backyard area as before. He teleports back, appearing directly in front of the SUV as it comes to a stop in the middle of the street. It attempts to race to bring Friend down, but he charges a burst just in time to do considerable damage to the front tires, forcing the vehicle into a tailspin before crashing.
“You’re gonna pay for that loco hombre!” As the man shouts, they all appear out of the vehicle in unison, guns drawn ready to attack. This time Friend is ready, taking the fight to them, urging himself to maintain fluid motion and a calm mind. As the first five rapidly approach his position, he teleports away. Sneaking up on the first adversary, instead of a loud burst he grabs him and takes him out using a super speed takedown. When the bullets fly in his direction he teleports to a second predetermined spot across the street, behind a large van. With another two in perfect view, he throws them a burst, forcing them back hard, crashing into their own vehicle.
The other two find Friend almost instantly and open fire, but he counters with a distortion field, bending spacetime and shredding the bullets into quantum dust just as Mason taught him. He then lunges forward with a teleporting lunge kick, knocking one to the ground, but allowing the leader to escape, just as the second car approaches. Alone for a moment he fires another burst at that car, then another, until all three are rendered incapacitated on the ground as their car is practically demolished.
Only the leader remains, hiding from Friend’s view and most likely prepping for an ambush. Friend moves slowly and methodically, aware of the strategy as he hunts him. Friend begins to teleport rapidly among his four predetermined spots until he finally spots him underneath the boat that Friend used as cover before. With a stunned demeanor he fires at Friend but he distorts and shreds the bullets, then in slow time, thrusting forward in a jump, locking his legs around the man’s neck, spinning around and powerfully pinning him to the ground. The man is dazed from the takedown. With the upper hand, Friend confiscates his gun, releasing the attached magazine and using his powers to bend and destroy in the weapon.
“Kings, huh?” Friend stares at the leader in disgust, delighting in the victory. “You are all kings of nothing. There is no escape from the asteroid.”
Friend teleports back to Mason, then they both return to the ranch.
Iteration 31
As night falls on the second day, Mason reveals the third and final test. “The first two tests involved fighting. This final test will test your wits and every power you have.”
They teleport to the bottom of an empty stairwell. They stand next to a door that leads to a restricted area. Mason looks up at the reddish brick colored stairs, as above you can hear the roars of thousands of people. He gestures, giving Friend the indication he wants him to climb the stairs.
“We are at the airport in Las Vegas. Just moments ago the president gave his address about the asteroid. The speech incited panic and rioting, and in the fracas, a little six-year-old girl named Emma was separated from her parents. Your goal is to reunite them.”
Friend gives Mason a bit of a surprised look. “Seems easy enough.”
“Easy? That’s not even it the half of it. To make matters worse, the parents are near their gate, ready to board their plane, and little Emma wandered outside the security checkpoint. You need to get her back through the checkpoint and to the gate, but without a ticket and any identification, it’s nearly impossible.”
“What does she look like?” Friend asks.
“That’s for you to figure out. Use your intuition. Oh and one more thing, their flight leaves in ten minutes… so you better get moving,” Mason instructs, as Friend ascends three flights of stairs to get to the ticketing area.
“Use your intuition,” he whispers to himself, partially mocking Mason’s vocal demeanor but also dwelling on the weight of the task. Friend takes a deep breath just as he opens the door, quieting his mind just he is about to face a frantic crowd.
He is greeted by an onslaught of thousands of angry, panicked travelers. People are running in all kinds of directions, pushing and shoving, in many cases knocking others to the ground. The ground is already littered with trash and debris. The more faint of heart are taking cover behind kiosks and behind chairs near the walls. The ticket counters are overwhelmed with endless evacuees wishing to procure whatever final flights are left. Amidst the melee, he sees a familiar face. It’s Max’s acquaintance, Fisher, who is at the ticket counter most likely trying to find his own way out of here.
She must be near the security gate, he concludes, as he makes chase toward that area. Fortunately for him the currents of the crowds are also headed that way, clearing a path albeit slowly, and not fast enough to his liking.
As he approaches the security checkpoint he is snarled by an incredibly dense crowd, making moving any farther incredibly difficult. The checkpoint area itself is wide, as more thousands are cramming the lines, nearly overwhelming the guards. An egress gate with wording marked “EXIT ONLY” is on the left, allowing people to exit, although there is no one trying to do so. This egress is heavily fortified by a contingent of dozens of guards, equipped with rapid fire weapons and spread out and positioned as if they are ready to fire. Two minutes have passed, and he is stuck yet again in a needle in a haystack scenario, with time as his enemy. Feel her, he demands of himself, fell her presence.
A thought hits him. Around the checkpoint and to the left is a large corridor lined with shops and restaurants, most which are fortifying their establishments with metal gates to prevent the encroaching angry crowds. Knowing that the swelling of the crowds would prevent her crossing the checkpoint he determines that she must have gone to the left, where the security area exit is. He pushes through, trusting his gut as he now fights against the crowds. As he is pushed out of the way more and more, he assumes a commanding posture, focused and determined. He knows she is nearby, somewhere very close, he can just feel it.
He stands at the end of the corridor, spinning around once completely like a radar antenna, hoping to spot her. Then he hears something faint, a wailing, a distant cry coming from the women’s bathroom. This must be her, he asserts to himself, ignoring any etiquette he’s learned about gender-separated bathrooms, and entering the restroom with swift determination.
A little girl stands crying at the door of the farthest stall, blond hair, brown eyes, chubby and round, as hordes of women ignore and bypass her as they help themselves to the toilets in turn. The women stare and scream at his presence, but in the heightened panic, they realize their cries will fall on deaf ears, and more are content to just retreat. He walks right up to her, placing his hand on her shoulder and crouching at eye level with the sobbing toddler.
“Are you Emma?” he asks calmly. She is so frightened she can barely speak through her whimpering, but manages to nod in affirmation.
“Did you lose your parents?” he probes further, although he has little doubt this is the little girl he is looking for. She nods again. Just then, a woman exits the last stall, and he grabs the little girl and takes her into the stall, providing him cover so he can teleport.
They arrive back near the egress portal of the security checkpoint, as he carries her on his left shoulder. About five minutes has passed, and he figures all he needs to do is get through the checkpoint, but how? He could try to use brute force, and use burst of energy, but this may draw out an even larger army than the ten or so standing by with itchy trigger fingers. He knows he cannot teleport to the other side. He contemplates his remaining options.
She breaks up his thoughts, finally musters up a few words, “I want my daddy, please.”
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br /> He soothes her and assures her he will get her to them. He understands he can enter nonspace to cloak himself while he advances through the egress, but unfortunately he cannot move while in nonspace and worse, time ticks ten times faster. But he can advance in waves, teleporting in an out. In order to put this plan into motion and facilitate his advance, he needs a diversion. He approaches the center of the spacious security checkpoint, where scores still seek to overrun the guards, and in the blink of an eye he bursts upward a blast of energy toward the ceiling, before disappearing just as fast.
As guards come from everywhere to investigate where the blast came from he returns to the start of the egress, then immediately enters nonspace. He lets about three seconds tick by, then reemerges and uses all his power to thrust himself forward. About halfway through the egress the guards try to swarm him, but he teleports away again, this time back to the stairwell. He counts to about five, then teleports back to the spot where he was, again running with accelerated force until he through to the other side. The guards give chase as he continues to run, this time into a men’s bathroom. He teleports away again, hiding in nonspace for a brief second before placing himself outside the bathroom.
“Which way, Emma!” he calls out as she points toward her gate. She is no longer crying, as she is now enjoying the supernatural jumping around from place to place. She calls out for more, “Can we do that again!”
Friend arrives at the gate where Emma pointed, and as he witnesses the guards continuing to scour for him in the corner of his eye, he hastily approaches the gate agent. “This little girl is lost. Her name is Emma. She is trying to find her parents on this flight.”
The gate agent talks into her earpiece instantly, communicating urgently to the personnel on the plane. Within thirty seconds an older couple emerges. The gate agent turns toward the couple, asking, “Is this your child?”
The man looks somewhat relieved, yet his face turns a pale white with concern. The woman has a cold, disturbed look. The man embraces his daughter, smiling yet indifferent, while the woman just stands there in a callous posture and rolls her eyes.
“She is not our daughter” the woman replies coldly. An evil presence emanates from her like a vial of poison. The father, shorter, balding, clearly submissive to the woman now appears conflicted. Friend is confused at their mannerisms. Why would a mother and father behave in such a strange manner, uninterested in their child, especially the woman? It suddenly hits him. This woman is not the mother, and is plotting to discard the man’s daughter like she is trash.
“So you are just abandoning her here?” Friend inquisitively asks, not understanding how two people, especially the adoptive mother, can display such cruelty.
“I hate you! My daddy hates you too!” Emma shouts angrily to her stepmother, releasing what seems to be the summation of all her anger toward the wicked woman stored up through her short life, afraid until now. The woman maintains her cold demeanor for a pause, but Friend can see through the tall blond woman’s surgically modified facial expression that she is containing a swell of rage. This little girl has just destroyed her plan to steal her father for herself, it seems.
“I’ll kill you, you little bitch!” the woman shouts as she jumps on the small child, unleashing a couple punches, then proceeding to wrap her hands around the girl’s neck, squeezing hard to strangle her.
Friend is frozen in emotional distraught. He slows down time almost to a crawl to come to grips with what he is witnessing, the woman suffocating the child with endless rancor. He simply cannot process the behavior of parents, even surrogate parents, treating a child in such a way. Where he comes from, the children are sacred, cared for by the whole society in an act of unconditional love. He feels it in his bones, and he witnessed it in his hallucinatory visions.
As each second ticks at one-tenth speed in Friend’s frame of reference, he watches as the man does little to stop her. The gate agent and a few bystanders try to pry the woman off the little girl, but her adrenaline fueled rage keeps them at bay. As the angry stepmother continues, Friend can see the scars and bruises on the girl’s legs, probably from another beating at the hands of that woman. As she screams for help, his heart becomes just as bruised.
Friend has had enough. He takes control of this overwhelming grief he is feeling, but a dark, raging feeling takes its place. Deep down he knows he mustn’t, but he puts his arms out anyway. He looks forward, eyes watering, his sense of self gone missing in a fleeting gust, just as the black hole collects mass between his palms. As the first violet-colored glimmers of the accretion disk form, signaling the hole’s massive potential energy, he returns to real time, releasing the burst of energy directly at the woman. The force so powerful it sends her back almost as fast as a bullet, knocking her through the glass windows overlooking the runway twenty or so meters away, causing shards to scatter everywhere. She lands fifty or so meters away and ten or so down toward the pavement, killing her instantly.
The chaotic crowds grind to halt for a moment as they witness the supernatural display. Friend is just as shocked as everyone else. He did not intend to do it, but something took him over, a type of evil he cannot explain. This is not who he is, and just as he realizes this, that overwhelming grief returns.
With the airport guards approaching, he realizes he must escape. Mason comes to the scene just before they close in. Emma looks at Friend with a mix of relief and fright, but gathers herself to rush to him give him a hug.
“She was such a monster. She tried to turn my daddy into a monster too,” she tells him, but he is unsure how to respond.
He gathers himself at the warm embrace of the little girl, and musters up what he can. “Emma, I have to go. You are a brave little girl.”
Mason grabs Friend, with the guards closing in just meters away, they both teleport away, Friend waving one final goodbye to the tortured little girl who will now see more peace in these final few days.
At the ranch, Mason gives Friend a look of disappointment, but Friend is more disappointed in himself. “I have failed, Mason.”
After a moment of silence, Mason cracks a smile. Friend realizes the test was never about aptitude of his powers, but of how he would handle the ugliest sides of human behavior.
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t a test. It was more of rite of self-discovery. You will encounter twisted and perverse evil on your journey. Where we come from, our emotions adhere to us, not the other way around. This world has a way of bringing out the primordial instincts in you, but you must keep your wits. These humans’ emotional intellect is not as evolved as ours, as you have probably discovered by now.”
“So what happens to the girl?” Friend asks.
“She’s much better off with the young couple who eventually take her in and act as her stand-in parents.” Mason assures Friend. “But for this one timeline, she spends it with her father. After a lifetime of being a coward, he finally redeems himself and devotes himself to her for these final days.”
Despite the reassurance and the happy ending for Emma, Friend will meditate on this, grow from this. He is more determined than ever to adhere to his sense of self, which is exactly what Mason intended.
19
Iteration 32
Friend arrives at the ranch to find Mason in meditation on the patio mat. He leaves him be for a while, wandering around the compound, realizing how unintentionally aware he has become of it. He has memorized the nuances of the stone exterior, the rustic orange rounded large front door and the rounded ceramic tiles on the roof. Mason must have searched years for such a place, vacated for these six days, just long enough to provide shelter for an eternity for Mason.
Just as Friend is staring at the walls of the exterior, leaning against the porch pillar, Mason appears into view.
“Now that you have passed the tests, I am ready to teach you your final power: healing. Healing yourself or even others in isolation is simple. But under duress, in the heat of conflict, you can find yourself becoming
overwhelmed in a hurry. Healing requires a great deal of focus, more so than teleportation. In the process you are sapping your own life energy, temporarily making yourself weak and possibly rendering yourself immobile. Once you master it, it becomes second nature, and you can recover quickly. The only problem is mastering it can take years, hundreds of iterations, and with the danger of the Other looming we must move quickly. For that reason, it was important for you to master your combative powers first.”
They return to the mat and engage in hours long meditation exercise, the emphasis on visualizing the healing process in the mind. Friend practices over and over, using the episode on that fatal night with FBI agent Stewart, to heal himself in his mind.
After lunch, they head to the fields, where Mason pulls out a gun. He situates Friend about five meters away. Mason speaks, “Okay Friend, I am going to demonstrate how fast you can heal yourself if you are shot by surprise. Point the gun at my chest and fire.”
Friend raises his arm, lines up the sights of the pistol to his chest, and fires. The bullet hits Mason’s chest, piercing him and pushing him back a quarter step before it almost instantaneously recoils from his chest, crushed from the impact.
“You see, I healed myself so fast that the bullet was ejected from my flesh.” Mason rubs his chest, as Friend is still amazed at what he witnessed.
For the rest of the iteration they practice healing, Friend being shot and forced to heal himself over and over, each time accomplishing it a bit quicker than the last. He continues to meditate and visualize using this power. To little surprise to Mason, Friend display an uncanny ability to progress quickly in this newfound skill.
Iteration 35
Friend has a firm grasp on his healing ability, his skill almost rivaling Mason’s. Mason is impressed with his progression, and feels he is almost ready to take on his quest. For this iteration the emphasis is on relaxation of the mind, to collect themselves for one more trial.