Still, I could hardly blame them for running.
I wanted to run away too.
Only Neha, Hitler’s Youth and Chance remained. I didn’t know if Chance had weighed the odds and decided I would be able to pull this off, or if the odds told her she was likely to die regardless of what she did.
“I hope you can pull this off,” Hitler’s Youth said to me. Then, he turned to the throng of shoppers around us.
“There’s a bomb!” his voice thundered. “Everybody run!” I had to give credit where credit was due. Instead of panicking and running the way those others had, he hadn’t forgotten we were still in the middle of a test that was being judged. In the real world, if a bomb was about to go off in a crowded place, the first thing a Hero would do would be to evacuate the area.
Despite Hitler’s Youth’s warning, none of the shoppers budged. Few seemed to hear him. In their defense, we were in civilian clothes. In our costumes, people would pay more attention to us and our warnings. I had learned in the Academy that was one of the main reasons we wore costumes and capes.
Hitler’s Youth cursed at the crowd’s lack of a reaction. He raised his hands high over his head and cupped together. A fireball shot out of them, hurtling towards the mall’s high ceiling.
BOOM!
The fireball exploded against the ceiling, seemingly harmlessly, but with a light show that would have rivaled a Fourth of July fireworks display. Though a couple of people screamed, the rest of the shoppers froze in fear and confusion.
“Bomb! Run!” Hitler’s Youth repeated. His loud voice reverberated through the mall like a foghorn. Another fireball shot from his outstretched hands. BOOM! It thundered against the ceiling.
Being told to run a second time was apparently the charm. Everyone around us began to scatter, like cockroaches when the lights unexpectedly turn on. Panicked screams and the sounds of scrambling feet echoed against the walls. Both Hitler’s Youth and Chance went to help the people who were getting trampled in the others’ mad dash.
I tore my attention away from the madhouse swirling around me. My eyes flicked up to Overlord’s countdown.
Less than thirty seconds to go.
It was now or never.
I felt Neha’s lips press against my cheek. Was it a goodbye or a good luck kiss? Both, maybe.
I stretched my hands out over the bomb like a witch consulting her crystal ball. I concentrated mightily, forming a spherical force field around the bomb within the contours of my clawed hands. In my mind’s eye, I pictured my force field as an immovable object nothing in the world could move. I tried to tune out everything else around me.
Seconds ticked away. Soon, thanks to the force of my concentration, everything else became gray and distant. I even stopped feeling my heavy breathing and the pounding of my heart, as if they now belonged to someone else. There was nothing else in the world but my power, my force field, and the bomb.
The bomb flashed like an erupting volcano.
It exploded.
Fire and fury and destruction raged between my hands. The terrific pressure felt like it was blowing my hands and mind apart. I hung on to maintaining my force field like my life depended on it because, well, it did. The mother of all migraines exploded in my skull, spreading to every nook and cranny of my tortured mind like a virus run amok. Simultaneously, it felt like a giant dominatrix in stiletto heels stepped on the base of my skull, harder and harder, until her full weight bore down on me.
The explosion in miniature taking place between my hands grew bigger. I could feel my hold on my force field slipping, like it was grains of sand trickling faster and faster between my fingers.
It wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t going to be able to contain the explosion. The bomb’s energy was about to escape. My mind and hands were about to fly apart. We were all going to die. Neha, the only girl I had ever loved, was about to die.
A thought pierced my agonized brain like a bolt from the blue. Maybe I was going about this all wrong. The law of conservation of energy dictated that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it merely is transformed from one form to another. Instead of trying to contain the explosion’s energy, maybe what I needed to do was to transform it into something else. I did it all the time when I used my powers, but usually on a much smaller scale. When the bank robbers had shot at me, for example, I had not stopped the kinetic energy of their racing bullets by making it disappear. Rather, I had absorbed the energy into my own body.
Like a drowning man desperately reaching for a life preserver, I immediately switched tactics. I went from trying to stop the force of the explosion to instead trying to absorb it. I went from trying to be a big rock that stopped the force of a wave smashing against it to trying to be a sponge that absorbed the wave.
The terrific light show exploding between my hands dimmed slightly. I felt the hair on my body stand on end as I slowly siphoned away the explosion’s energy, absorbing it into my own body. I soon felt like I had chugged a gallon of coffee and then had stuck my fingers into an electric outlet.
The energy fighting for freedom within my force field faded, and then disappeared. I staggered backwards, gasping for breath.
“Son of a bitch!” Hitler’s Youth said. His voice was full of disbelief. “The little twerp actually pulled it off.”
“Remarkable,” Chance exclaimed.
“Oh my God, Theo!” Neha said, uncharacteristically slipping and calling me by my real name in front of others. Her voice was equal parts shocked and awed. “You did it.”
Well, not quite. I slammed my mouth and eyes closed, afraid the energy I had absorbed was going to shoot out of me to disastrous effect. Now instead of the bomb exploding and killing everyone, I felt like I was going to explode and kill everyone. Every fiber of my being buzzed with barely suppressed energy. It was as if an electrified buzzing bee was ricocheting off the walls of every cell in my body. My body felt like it was about to fly apart like jet pushed well past its design specifications. I just had to release the massive amount of energy I had absorbed before it blew me apart.
Out wasn’t an option, because that was where the others were.
Up seemed like the only reasonable alternative.
I turned my face up like I was praying to God. I threw open my mouth and eyes. I channeled the energy inside of me, forcing it out through my gaping eyes and mouth.
The energy I had absorbed shot out of me like an erupting volcano. It felt like I was projectile vomiting every ounce of energy pent up in my body’s cells.
The blasts of energy from my eyes and mouth hit the mall’s ceiling like a laser cutting through butter. Part of the ceiling disappeared with a massive concussion. Rubble fell. The energy destroyed part of the holographic illusion, exposing the shimmering walls of the holosuite. The energy blasts cut right through the holosuite, through the floor above us in the Guild complex, and then through the floor above that. They hit the dome that covered the entire Guild complex high above. The dome rang deafeningly, like a struck bell. Everything around us shook, like we were going through an earthquake.
I gushed energy like an exploding geyser.
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, all the explosive energy was out of me.
I fell to my knees, unable to stand. I felt as weak as a newborn kitten. My chest heaved. I exhaled smoke like a chimney. My throat and nose were raw. My eyes burned like acid had been thrown into them.
As if from far away, like I was at the bottom of a well and someone was calling down to me, I heard someone speaking. It was Neha.
“Well,” she said. Wonder filled her voice. “That’s new.”
***
A short while later, Pitbull looked up at the gaping hole I had cut through the holosuite all the way up to the dome covering the Guild complex. Neha, Chance, and Elemental Man were still here with me. I was making a real effort to think of Elemental Man as that instead of as “Hitler’s Youth.” Though I still didn’t like him or how he treated me and N
eha, I respected the fact he hadn’t run away from the bomb the way some of the other Hero candidates had.
We four Hero candidates had each given statements about what had happened to the proctors. Through the holes I had blasted through the Guild complex, I could see one of the Hero proctors flying high above us. From this distance, he looked like a buzzing gnat flitting right below the dome housing the Guild complex. He was effecting repairs to the dome. Apparently, I had cracked it when I had blasted it with the bomb’s redirected energy. We had been told Earth Sigma’s native life wasn’t friendly, and the Guild didn’t want to give the creatures on the other side of the dome a chance to breach it through a damaged portion.
Pitbull shook his head as he examined the damage I had caused.
He said, “Just when I had thought I had seen everything, someone turns up and shows me something new. First the nanites, now this.” He then looked at me. “You certainly have a flair for being in the thick of things, Kinetic.”
“Not by choice,” I said. I was as unsteady on my legs as a newborn colt. My eyes and nose burned, like I was having the mother of all allergy attacks. My voice was raspy, like I was recovering from a bout of laryngitis. Spewing out energy like you were Mount Vesuvius was apparently hard on one’s orifices. Who knew? “If one of the infirmary’s doctors specializes in flair removal surgery, let me know.”
Pitbull snorted and then looked back up at the damage I had caused.
Overlord had already told us four Hero candidates we had passed this test, and why: Neha and I for locating the bomb, me for containing and redirecting the bomb’s explosive energy, and Chance and Elemental Man for not abandoning their mission and doing what they could to ensure the safety of the civilians in the mall. Dervish, Glamour Gal, Samson, and Flare had failed and had been sent packing. For all I knew, they were back on Earth Prime by now, sleeping in their own beds. I envied them. Not the flunking out part, but the sleeping part. I was so exhausted I felt like I would give Rip Van Winkle a run for his money when I finally got some shut-eye.
“There weren’t supposed to be any real explosives used in this test,” Pitbull said. “Only a holographic one. If the test had gone as it was designed to go and you all weren’t able to defuse the holographic bomb in time, you might have been injured a bit. You certainly wouldn’t have been killed. And the rest of the complex certainly shouldn’t have been in any danger. Our preliminary overview of Overlord’s recorded footage gives no indication of how someone snuck a bomb into this test. We’re launching an investigation as to how and why this happened.”
“Isn’t the ‘why’ obvious?” Neha said. “Someone’s trying to kill Kinetic. First the nanites, now this. Plus, Kinetic says this bomb looked like the big brother of the one someone tried to kill him with before he entered the Trials.” She could have added Iceburn’s assassination attempts, but probably didn’t want to risk exposing too much of my personal life in front of the other Hero candidates.
“Why would anyone go through the bother of trying to kill someone like him?” Elemental Man said, eyeing me contemptuously. He said “him” the way someone might say, “Eeew! A cockroach!”
And just like that, the goodwill I had felt towards him vaporized. My nickname for him was reborn. Rest in peace Elemental Man. Long live Hitler’s Youth.
“How about showing him some respect and gratitude, asshole?” Neha said hotly. “He just saved your life. He saved all our lives.” I would’ve added “Yeah!” but I was too busy concentrating on remaining upright.
“I would’ve found a way to defuse the bomb if the twerp hadn’t been around,” Hitler’s Youth said with confidence.
“How exactly? By smothering it with your ego? Or you could have told it this is your last shot at the Trials. Maybe it would’ve felt sorry for you and deactivated itself.”
Hitler’s Youth flushed. He loomed intimidatingly over Neha. Despite my exhaustion, I knew if he took one more step towards her I’d toss him through the hole in the holosuite’s ceiling and through the cracked dome. Maybe he’d get along better with the bat-tigers that flew around out there.
“If you weren’t a girl, I’d slap you into next week,” he warned Neha.
“And if you were a man, you might try,” she snapped back. She looked about as intimidated by him as a pit viper was by a mouse.
“All right, that’s enough,” Pitbull said. Though he hadn’t even raised his voice, his tone commanded compliance like a cracked whip. “We’ve got enough trouble with someone trying to harm Hero candidates without you two doing his job for him.”
Neha and Hitler’s Youth glowered at each other. They looked like they wanted to smack the taste out of the other’s mouth. My money was on Neha.
“Once we know how and why this happened, we’ll let you know,” Pitbull said. “In the meantime, there’s nothing more we need from you at this time. You should get some rest. As you know by now, you never know when you’ll be called on to take your next test. You in particular Kinetic look like the walking dead.”
“The walking dead” accurately captured exactly how I exhausted I felt.
But, in light of the repeated attempts to kill me, I really wished Pitbull had used a different phrase.
CHAPTER 18
That night, I dreamed about a bomb the size of my head blowing up as I held it. Once I was blown to bits, I would slowly re-form, my bloody bits reassembling like a gruesome jigsaw puzzle until I was unhurt again. I would repeat the process, over and over, in a continuous loop of explosions and re-forming.
I didn’t need a doctorate in psychoanalysis to figure out the origin of that dream. Oh, and by the way—whoever said you can’t feel pain in a dream lied. I felt excruciating pain every time the bomb blew me to smithereens, and then yet again when I coalesced back together.
Though it seemed like I had only been asleep for a short while, I was nothing short of relieved when Overlord’s voice and flashing strobe light awakened me. I slowly sat up in my bed. I hadn’t even begun to recover from channeling the bomb’s energy. I felt like a corpse rising from his coffin.
“All right, all right, I’m awake,” I said irritably to Overlord. It was an effort to speak. “How long have I been asleep, anyway?”
“Three hours,” came Overlord’s voice.
Three hours? I felt like death warmed over. What crazy thing was the Guild about to throw me into feeling like the living dead and with only three hours of sleep?
My sleep-fogged mind was in the middle of mulling over if this treatment constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment when Overlord spoke again.
“Precisely twelve hours from now, you will report to Portal Two,” Overlord said in its usual unemotional British voice. “From there, you will be transported to a planet where you will meet your fellow Hero candidate Elemental Man. You will battle him in a one-on-one gladiatorial contest. Whoever prevails will advance to the next round of testing. As this duel will be to the death, both you and he are being provided with advance warning to enable you to prepare and to allow you to bid farewell to whomever you deem necessary. Any farewell messages may be recorded on your room’s access panel. They will be forwarded to whomever you wish in the event you do not survive.”
With that, Overlord’s strobe light stopped flashing. The room fell dark.
I collapsed back into my bed, relieved I would be able to get more shut-eye before having to contend with another test. I was so exhausted from dealing with that bomb, having to fight Hitler’s Youth right away would be a slaughterfest. If I had to fight him immediately, I’d be tempted to just forfeit now to save everyone the time and trouble.
It took several more seconds for what Overlord had said to fully penetrate my denser-than-usual skull.
I shot upright like a jack-in-the-box. I was abruptly wide awake as if I had been dunked into boiling water.
A duel to the WHAT?!
***
“You can’t kill him, Theo. You know that,�
� Neha said.
“What choice does he have?” Isaac demanded. “Roll over and let that jackass kick him to death? He has to do it.”
“There’s a third option,” she said. “You have to forfeit the match, Theo. Don’t fight him at all. Quit.”
“And forever give up the chance to get his Hero’s license? After all the time and effort it took to get here? After all he’s already been through? You’re crazy.”
We were in Neha’s room. Other than the fact her bed was in a slightly different position, her room was identical to mine in its spartan and sterile unchicness. It was several hours after I had gotten Overlord’s pronouncement. I hadn’t gotten a wink more of sleep. Telling someone he had to fight someone else to the death in a few short hours tended to keep you awake. Who would’ve guessed? That effect was a fact I had been happily ignorant of a few hours ago.
Isaac and Neha sat on her bed as they argued about what I should do. I paced at the foot of the bed like a caged tiger. Maybe like a lamb being led to slaughter would be a better analogy.
What in the world was I going to do?
“If I fight him and lose, I’ll die. If I fight him and win, I’ll have killed someone. Hitler’s Youth is hardly my favorite person, but I don’t want to murder the guy. If I refuse to fight him, I’ll get thrown out of the Trials and be forever barred from getting my license.” I shook my head in frustration. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have a choice. You have to kill him,” Isaac said definitively.
“The only part you’re right about is that Theo doesn’t have a choice.” Neha glared at him. “He has to quit.”
She turned to me.
“Theo, we all know how important getting your license is to you. We know you want to use it to find who hired Iceburn. I know how hard you’ve worked to get here. We’ve all worked incredibly hard to get here. But you can’t kill Elemental Man. How many times did Amazing Man and our instructors at the Academy tell us that Heroes don’t kill? I’m not saying quitting is a good option. But, it’s the best of your bad options.”
Trials: The Omega Superhero Book Two (Omega Superhero Series 2) Page 15