The Powerless Series: Complete 5-Book Set

by Jason Letts

  “Thank you,” Neeko said. “ Finally we can get this going.”

  His shadow ascended the stairs, separating the fighting women. Roselyn had some blood dripping out of her mouth. Wide-eyed, she looked down at Mary and Will and nodded. As per his duty, Neeko beckoned the crowd to enter and started distributing the prayer books. So close their elbows were rubbing against each other, Mary and Will followed the crowd into the temple, listening for the first signs of the commotion that were sure to come.

  They saw Kevin and Jeana take their prayer books and walk inside amongst the funneling crowd. Still at the entrance, Roselyn fixed her gaze on the temple-goers. Neeko gave both Will and Mary an icy look as he shoved the books into their hands. They immediately joined Roselyn and huddled off together toward the back.

  “What’s going on? Why hasn’t it started?” Will asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mary said.

  Looking around, most people were chatting idly or reading the books. It seemed most of them had grown so complacent of the statue they too never bothered to look at it. Nearly everyone had filed in, and most were letting their tired eyes rest on the gritty floor.

  Will had to see what was going on, and so he lifted his head for a glimpse at what Roselyn had drawn. Seeing the distortions on the revered face immediately caused him to chuckle, and soon he was so enraptured by it he couldn’t bring himself to look away. The noise caused everyone to look at him rather than the statue, and it caught the attention of the guards too.

  “Who’s laughing?” Gloria barked.

  Though Gloria stamped her way to the back, threatening to rain on any chance of getting away unseen, Will continued to laugh at the statue’s goofy mug. Alarmed, Roselyn and Mary urgently tried to pull him away. But by now his carefree laughter marked a very different expression from his terrified, disbelieving eyes.

  A lifelike ripple passed through the charcoal eyebrows, cheeks, and mouth. It wavered and strained to hold the different parts of the face together in unison. The lips parted as it seemed to gain more control, and the movement in the face seemed to sink into the stone itself. Though many now had their eyes on Will, he giggled in fearful awe as the statue came to life.

  “You been wrong to follow me. Only one I’ll’s ever care about’s myself.”

  The drawling voice of a young woman emanated from the statue, causing everyone in the room to lift their eyes to the representation of their Savior. Before Mary forced Will’s face away, he saw Clara lose her grasp of the statue as the different parts of the face froze in place in rapid succession.

  But she had succeeded perfectly at getting everyone’s attention, and now pockets of laughter sprung up throughout the assembled masses. The sound bubbled and grew in a chorus of raucous hilarity that hit Will, Mary, and Roselyn like a wave. It felt like it was pushing them out of the temple, and all it would take was a few steps and a leap from the floor to the ground to do it.

  “This is our chance! Let’s go!” Mary shook, appearing wired and antsy. She still held onto Will, who had begun to calm down. But when she took one step with Will toward the edge, Roselyn turned back to face the crowd.

  Gloria had almost made it to them before the monumental clamoring erupted. Neeko and some of the other guards were shoving and punishing their flock in an attempt to get them to be quiet, but she had a clear view down the aisle of the statue. Unable to stop herself from laughing, she eyed the statue and brought her hand to her mirthful mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Mary yelled to Roselyn amid the din.

  Roselyn marched forward and slammed the bottom of her foot into Gloria’s back. Gloria emitted a guttural yelp and spilled onto her stomach. Before she could turn back to see what had happened, Roselyn walked onto her back. Taking her foot in her hand and gritting her teeth, Roselyn dropped down to drill her knee between Gloria’s shoulder blades.

  Gloria howled and shrieked, the weight on her back preventing her from getting up. All around them the laughter now competed evenly with cries and yelling. In confusion and frenzy, people were fighting back against the Sunfighter guards. Someone tripped against Gloria’s legs and fell against another section of the crowd. There were flashes of light and the roof creaked and groaned like something was tearing it apart.

  “Roselyn!” Will shouted as he came behind her as she huddled against Gloria’s back and tried to keep away from her outstretched, toxic hands. He lifted Roselyn from underneath her arms, and pulled her away. Gloria, now freed, turned her head back in anger, but she only had time to see Roselyn point an accusing finger and spit at her before the brawling mob enveloped her.

  They heard her roar at them as they broke away from the shifting crowd. The coast was clear, and there was nothing left to do but leap from the temple and run, but, just a foot away from the edge, Mary grabbed hold of Will’s ragged shirt and shoved him away with an angry snarl.

  Barely able to see the look on her face out of the corner of his eye, Will reeled to the side just as he felt something graze his shoulder. He squinted out of confusion but then his body smacked against something hard. Twisting his neck, there was nothing there, but then he heard a shuddering whimper trail away over the edge. Colliding against the ground, some definition came to Neeko’s writhing body, the wind knocked out of him after his invisible attack had been thwarted.

  Will, Mary, and Roselyn sailed from the temple’s edge clear over Neeko, who feebly raised a hand to stop them. They hit the ground and started sprinting down the hill.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary huffed.

  “No, no,” Will deferred, already too focused on running to say much. But they hadn’t cruised down the slope for more than a few strides before Mary raised their attention to a new problem.

  “The witch!” she cried, and sure enough the old woman slowly emerged from the side of her building and hobbled into the middle of the bottleneck between cabins. They raced down to her at full speed, clueless how to deal with her as she raised her cane and it ignited in a colorful blast of writhing specks.

  “What do we do now?” Will coughed, though they were already beyond the point where they could go around.

  But there was no time to decide anything. The one-eyed woman prepared to take a swing when the on-rushers swept down at her. Roselyn veered far to the right and would be clear of her right to left stroke. Mary and Will barreled at each side of her, watching the teeming cane cut through the air. They ducked down, coming so close to the fluorescent bacteria that the glow lit up their faces, but moments later they had left her behind with no way of ever catching up to them.

  One foot after the other, they scampered farther down the hill, sinking under the smoke from the forge and passing the hulking building completely. Only the thin and flimsy gate remained. It would be easy to surpass, so long as Mary was right about the studs still piercing their ears.

  “I hope we won’t blow up,” Will fretted, and Roselyn too looked like she was bracing herself for something terrible to happen.

  “Trust me!” Mary bellowed confidently, and together they hurdled the gate and touched down on the other side. Nervous laughter sputtered through their heavy breathing, and they eyed each other jubilantly, realizing they had left the dreaded camp behind. The weight of that place, the invasive stench that seemed to hold them down, and its hopeless and dreary numbness were all gone. Joyful giggling enveloped them, and they rode the feeling that their hearts were lighter than air straight down the curving mountain glade out of sight.

  Sometime later, once the riot had been quelled, order had been restored, and all but three of the camp’s occupants had been accounted for, Gloria and Neeko took the long walk to the bottom gate to look over the winding valley down the mountain. The only remaining traces of Roselyn, Will, and Mary were the resentment and scorn captured in the hearts of those who despised them most.

  Gloria squeezed her frothing fingers around the thin metal strip of the gate’s top rail.

  “I don’t know which one I want to kill m
ore,” she scowled.

  Neeko hung his head down around his pointy shoulders. He had heavy bags hanging under his bloodshot eyes. Cracking open his mouth, he yawned.

  “There’s nothing we can do about them now. Just have to hope the land gets to them.”

  “Then I’d hate it too for robbing me of my chance to get even.”

  Roselyn, Will, and Mary had run for a few hours until the land started to level off and their bodies gave out. The driving fear they were being followed diminished, and in its place came the reality of their desperate condition. Now they were tramping through the hills of browned forest, following the trail left by the caravan wagons. They were exhausted and hungry, but they felt safe from pursuers and most of all free.

  “Well, we broke ourselves out. Now all we have to do is spring the others, assuming we can ever find out where they are,” Mary observed, walking alongside her friends.

  “This caravan trail should lead us right there. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for anything to eat along the way, and before we know it we’ll all be together again,” Will hoped.

  Mary took a few steps before speaking again. Her sandaled feet brushed through the short and dried-out vegetation.

  “What’ll we do when we get there? I mean, how are we going to free them? They could’ve tried to destroy the ship by now. We don’t even know if they’re alive,” she worried, causing Will to sigh.

  “True, we don’t know what’s happened. But if they couldn’t come to us, that means they need us to come to them. That’s what being friends is about. We’ll take whatever chance there is find them, because the hope of getting us all together again is too great not to act on.”

  They continued through the seemingly endless expanse of withering trees and stark blue sky. No one knew how long it would take to get where they were going, and there was no telling what they might come across on the way, but at the very least they had each other.

  A little later on, Mary chuckled and turned to Roselyn. Something didn’t quite make sense, and she had to figure out the reason for it.

  “Can I ask you something?” she asked Roselyn, who rolled her darkened blonde locks over her shoulder to turn to her. She looked into her friend’s blue eyes, so much the color of water, that attentively studied her. “Why did you go after Gloria? We could’ve just been gone.”

  Roselyn demurely put her head down for a moment as she strolled between her friends. When she raised her head and displayed some renewed confidence, she put her arm around Will, squeezing him close and smiling. Will smiled brightly too, even though he struggled to keep from tipping over completely.

  “Aww, that’s cute. I get it now,” Mary cheered, but her feeling was bittersweet. She reached into the pocket of her ragged shorts and wrapped her fingers around a small bone dice. It had Vern’s face etched into it, and she clutched it secretly with all the strength her hand could muster. More than anything else, she hoped they would find them soon.

  Chapter 13: Setting Sail

  When the towering gate of the seaside camp swung open its doors, a flood of black uniforms swept into the camp. The Sunfighter army had arrived, and the mass of them set themselves to work launching the ship that would take them out to sea. As if the very Earth were collapsing into itself, a huge sinkhole formed along the beach and under the ship, creating a channel that would support the boat and give it access to the nearby dock and pier.

  The camp’s occupants, from the lowly slaves to the guards to the freshly arrived army, stood near the outside of the temple as those with the assisting powers did their work. There were people to sink the ground, flood the channel, lower the boat, and someone to push it out into the open water. The massive depression created in the beach consumed the ship’s supports, palm trees, and even small boathouses.

  Nearby, Mira snuck into her drafting room, quietly closing the door behind her. Intermittent loud crashes and noises rattled the walls. Approaching her desk, she looked at her shelf. It had two objects on it, a snow globe and a tiny bottle. The globe had a swirling piece of her father’s mist, and the dusty bottle had the sleep-inducing tears of her mother. She plucked each of them from the shelf and looked at them in her open hands.

  “Your day has finally come,” she declared and then placed them in her pockets.

  Weaseling in amongst the awestruck congregation, Mira joined Vern, Aoi, and Chucky, who watched the incredible feat of the ship’s launch. Not since the war had they seen the full effect of so many powers. Vika was alongside them too, and she seemed to be looking everywhere at once, if not out of wonder for the monumental proceedings then in an attempt to spot her stolen child.

  “Are we ready?” Mira whispered, hoping the noise from the ship launch would conceal their conversation.

  “There are crates by the farm. We’ve got to get to them soon. I’ll take you in myself, just like we planned,” Aoi hushed.

  “Are you nervous?” Vern asked, giving a sidelong glance to Chucky. “And I thought the Final Trial was a big deal.”

  “Always,” Chucky twitched, looking his friends over. “It’s do or die now, but there’s no way I’d let you do this alone.”

  A loud splash and a tidal wave launched into the air as the huge vessel dropped into the water. The shiny propeller and rudder slipped below the surface. The boat swayed back and forth until it steadied itself and stayed upright, the ventilation shaft’s grate wedged into the rear end. Only towing the boat out to the dock and tying it down so it could be loaded remained. The soldiers and the coerced slaves cheered, leaving just the handful of nonbelievers to shudder at the prospect of what would happen next. Mira put her hand onto Vika’s shoulder and drew her mouth closer to her ear.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get Knoll back. He’s more important than all of us,” she called, turning with fright and concern.

  “Do you really think he’s the only one who can put the carafe back together?” Vika asked.

  “I know so,” Mira imparted. “Now all we need is for Arent to show up.”

  “He’s not here, is he?” Vern agreed, but even as he spoke sharp gasps and cries sprung up through the crowd and they could all feel the draining bite in the sun’s harsh glare that came only when it shined on its brutal master.

  “We need to go,” Aoi said, but they couldn’t turn away without seeing him.

  Crimshaw jogged over from the ship to the middle of the clearing in front of the temple and facing the open gate. Everyone turned their heads to see a solitary figure, his imposing frame cloaked in cheap and dingy fabric similar to that of the slaves, hulk his way into the camp like a slow-motion stampede.

  Pulling his hood down to reveal his sun-singed hair and grim visage, Arent sniffed at the assembled and the proceedings with an air of dour righteousness and condescending apathy. But for as troubling his face was, Mira and her friends were all entranced by his chest, which contained a strange lump right around the center. Now that they knew to look for it, the concealed shard of the diamond carafe was all too obvious.

  Mesmerized by the long-sought and most-desired object of their excruciating ordeal, it was hard not to give in to the impulse to go after it right then and there. It seemed like only a thin sheet of brown fabric separated them from the freedom and peace they had dreamed of so long, instead of the army of soldiers and devoted followers who would willingly sacrifice themselves to obliterate even the slightest disturbance.

  “Welcome, please. Tell me, what do you need?” Crimshaw humbly asked in full view of the crowd.

  “A place to call my home. Let us now be gone from this rock. There is a new land out there. May it be full of the warmth of heart we have yet to find here.”

  Arent droned as he always had. When he noticed the crowd near the temple in his honor, he hid behind his shoulder and turned his back to them.

  “Certainly,” Crimshaw assented, ushering him onward toward the shipyard and the dock. “We’ll find a place we can all belong. The troubles we have known here will be long gone.�
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  Crimshaw and Arent drew the attention of the crowd, and in that time Mira and her friends skulked away in the opposite direction toward the farm. Unwilling to let their manipulator pass from sight, the crowd followed him at a respectful distance, watching him climb the stairs onto the long wooden pier. The magnificent vessel stretched alongside them, but he didn’t seem to notice. Attentively, Crimshaw puffed out his chest and signaled for the entrance into the ship’s belly to be lowered.

  “Everything is fully-functional, if you’d just—”

  A loud snap came with Arent’s step, causing immediate rumbling within the crowd, and the two men turned back to see a distinct crack in one of the floorboard planks. The blood seemed to drain from Crimshaw’s face as Arent grew disgusted and grumbled incoherently. But he continued on and finally traversed the drawbridge leading into the ship’s dark labyrinth.

  Crimshaw and Arent, on board the empty vessel, wove through narrowing pathways, stepping over pipes, and trekking through the dim light on the way to the engine room in the rear. Soon the army of the Sun would pack the ship, but for now the only sounds were of wood creaking against metal and their own footsteps.

  Coming to the silver metal door at the end of the corridor, Arent stopped dead and Crimshaw leapt out to twist the handle’s tiny wheel. They breached the entranceway into the room lined with solid metal sheets. It was dark in here too, but the air seemed fresher because it came from outside and didn’t have the smell of cut wood like the rest of the ship.

  They came to the pair of pillars and the generator at the end of the room. Arent nodded firmly, slowing his steps until he was almost walking in place. Together they gazed at the mechanism before them, the one that would convert the energy of Arent’s power into electricity to propel the ship.

  Crimshaw stayed perfectly still as his leader stepped onto the platform. His mouth hung open and quivered a bit as Arent turned around, his shoulders the same height as the tall orbs beside him.