I’m not going to let that happen, so with the last of my energy, I send two pulse blasts up at the figure and am relieved to see one of them hits the villain in the shoulder, sending them spinning away.
I close my eyes and try to summon more energy to stop myself completely in the air, but it seems like I’ve used up everything I have. I can only slow myself a bit as I continue to plummet towards the ground.
My vision starts to become hazy and I use my other hand, which is keeping me upright, to rub at my eyes. I begin to tumble sideways like a child falling off a see-saw and then the air rushes past me. My stomach is in my throat and I don’t even have the chance to cry out as I plummet back towards the ground.
The pain in my shoulder intensifies to a degree that I can’t even justify. It’s as if there’s a pulsing, buzzing core to the pain that is ratcheting up the stabbing pangs. I can feel it in the enamel of my molars now and I clench them so hard that they feel like they’re going to shatter.
The coppery taste of blood fills my mouth and I begin to choke. The air is so thin that I’m suffocating as I plummet.
One last jolt of pain engulfs me, and my vision bursts with stars. I can see the trees beneath me rushing upwards, getting bigger and bigger. This must be what it was like for The Drone after our battle by the lake.
Then I black out, prepared to die. At least if I’m dead I will get to see Dad again.
___
But, I don’t die. My eyes open shortly after blacking out and I’m both relieved and disappointed by the fact.
Mae is leaning over me, her hands pulling me onto my side. My head rolls onto my shoulder and I cry out as the pain that I felt in the air flares up once more. Bits of spittle fly from my mouth and pepper the dirt-covered ground. The scream that rips itself from my mouth reverberates off the trees that surround the stone outcrop we’ve landed on.
“Hold on!” Mae says, her voice trembling as she tries to hold me on my side. “You need to hold on, Shaun!”
She’s pulling my sweatshirt jacket down over my arms. Her fingers press against my shoulder and the pain becomes excruciating.
“AAAAARGH!” I yell, and Mae presses her lips together.
Taking a sharp inhale, she grabs my shirt collar in her hands and rips it apart with her nails, clawing it open to reveal my bare shoulder. Then, in one swift motion, she plucks something from my flesh and it separates with a ripping sound.
The pulsing pain stops, but my shoulder, upper back, and right arm are now tingling and the tips of my fingers feel numb. I collapse onto my back and close my eyes, focusing on my breathing.
My head is spinning. I still feel as if I’m falling through the air, tumbling to my death. Beneath my chest, my heart pounds furiously.
I let my head fall to the side, resting my temple against the dirt as warmth returns to my limbs. Down at this level it feels like summer again and I realize how freezing I was up in the atmosphere. I don’t think I’m going to try to do that again in the future, even if I see a vision of my father flying up there.
I don’t feel any other pain in my body aside from where my shoulder was throbbing, so Mae must have caught me before I hit the ground. I force a smile as I catch my breath.
“You’re a good catch, Mae,” I say. “I should be dead right now -”
My eyes open and instead of seeing Mae sitting beside me like I expect, I see her crouched over, facing away from me. One of her hands is clawed against the rocky outcrop while the other is clenched into a fist, hovering just below her chest. She sounds like she’s retching, though nothing comes out of her stomach.
I force myself onto my stomach and crawl over to her, still too weak and dizzy to get to my feet.
“Mae!” I say, coming up beside her. “Are you alright? Mae!”
When I place a hand on her back, Mae’s head snaps to look at me. Her eyes are wide open and pure white, glowing faintly. I hear a humming sound, almost like when someone runs their finger along the rim of a water goblet, and Mae’s mouth opens, gasping for breath.
Then her eyes close gently and she collapses onto the ground. I barely have a second to slide my arm under her to stop her chin from bashing against the ragged rock.
The two of us lie there for a few moments with only the sound of our breathing interrupting the wind through the trees and the calls of nearby birds. Then Mae comes to her senses and sits up. I join her.
“You had another vision, didn’t you?” I ask.
She hears what I say, but can’t seem to process it. I wait for her to speak, which she does after about a half a minute of silence.
“I saw the same facility that I did when I touched The Drone’s suit,” she says, her eyes blinking.
I frown. “What brought that on?”
She holds out her hand and opens it, revealing a tiny metal dot ringed with black. The light glints off its shiny surface.
“What the heck…?” I mutter as I pick up the metal dot between my finger and thumb. “Where did this come from?”
“I ripped that off your shoulder,” says Mae. “It was jabbed through your shirt and into your skin.”
I turn the dot over and see a thin, very fine needle-like point protruding from the middle of the underside. I have another flare up of pain, but this time it’s from the memory of what happened in the air brought on by the sight of this foreign object.
I shake my head.
“I don’t know what this is,” I say. It almost looks alien, but that’s nonsense. How in the world did something like this get onto my skin? I haven’t been anywhere near a laboratory, or anything industrial at all. Looking around at the nature that surrounds us, I can’t think of a place more removed from technology. I turn to Mae, handing her back the dot. “This comes from the same facility?” I ask.
Again Mae blinks as she lets the dot settle on her palm. Then she says, “It can’t be a coincidence. You must have been bugged somehow. Don’t ask me how, because I’m just as in the dark as you are. But, this must be some sort of tracking device.”
I shake my head in disbelief. This is starting to sound more and more like a science fiction thriller than my actual life.
Tracking devices? People dressed in mechanized suits of armor?
I want to curl up into a ball and hide in my bedroom until everything just goes away, as cowardly as that sounds.
Mae shakes her head, her shoulders slumped as she brings a hand up to her eyes.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she says, sounding defeated for the first time. Whatever super vision power she has, it’s taking a physical and emotional toll on her.
I get to my feet.
“Well, I know what we’re going to do,” I say. This catches Mae’s attention and her head snaps towards me.
“What?” she asks.
I inhale through my nose, filling my chest until the feeling of fear is collected in my lungs and exhaled forcefully. My feet are planted on the ground and my hands are balled into fists that press against my waist.
“I can’t speak for both of us,” I start, “but, I know that I’m done with being chased like a scared animal. I’m the one with superpowers - I’m an Aberrant. I have the Vestige, for crying out loud!” I yank the chain around my neck and pull out the Vestige. It feels cold against my neck. Refreshing. “Nobody’s going to take this from me. This is my power. The shard is your power. Are we really going to be intimidated by some guy in a suit? By visions of people we’ve lost?”
“With the whole world watching, and a government that will probably lock us up and conduct experiments?” Mae replies. “I may look confident in the battlefield, but I’m scared shitless.” She brings her hands up in front of her, her fingers spread out. “I mean, what do we know? I thought that once I had powers like you, I would just become brave. In the end, we’re just high schoolers. I don’t even know how to control my powers beyond tiny little flashes of imagery.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” I say, standing in front of Mae,
looking down at where she sits. “Maybe that’s all there is to your super vision - just tiny blips of locations. Places where these objects originate. Your visions led us to these caves with the paintings. Maybe they can lead us to the facility that is equipping The Drone with weapons.” I flex my fingers. “I’m done just sitting around, waiting for the next attack - the next part of their psychological warfare, whoever they are. We need to put a stop to all this madness.”
Mae reaches out and touches my arm.
“You saw a vision of someone you lost?” she asks, her eyes full of empathy. “Was it your father?”
I simply look away. It’s too painful to even talk about. The vision was so real. I don’t want it to be fake, but there’s no other explanation. The tiny dot that was planted on my shoulder had to be laced with some sort of mind-altering chemical.
Mae squeezes my arm and says, “It couldn’t have been your father. He wouldn’t have just appeared and then said nothing.”
I shake my head. There are so many questions. I wish that it really was my father that I saw in the caves. I could have caught up with him and asked him all these questions I had.
But, Mae is right. It wasn’t my father in the caves. It was an illusion brought on by someone in league with The Drone, and their intentions are clear to me. They want to break me down so that I’m easy to capture.
“No,” I mutter. “I’m not going to let The Drone wear me down and take me down that easily. All I want is a normal life. I just want to be a writer, to finish up my father’s legacy. Is that so much to ask?”
Mae stands up this time, brushing the dust off her pants.
“It seems a little funny to be striving for a normal life now, doesn’t it?” she says. “Even if you or I want a normal life, there’s no going back. I mean, maybe we can go back to the way things were if we bury the Vestige and the shard. But, you’re never going to do that.”
I shake my head. “It’s too risky. You’re right. Giving up our Aberrant powers is not really an option at this point. We just need to own it and move forward.” I clench my teeth, then continue. “It’s obvious that the tech people, whoever they are, want my powers. They just don’t want a repeat of the battle with The Drone at the lake, especially now that I’m stronger than before.” I look Mae in the eye. “We need to get the jump on them before they can come again for us. We need to catch The Drone off guard and lead the police to the facility in your visions and put an end to this debacle once and for all. Then, maybe, we can live a somewhat normal life.” For a moment I can’t help but break the tension with a smirk. “You’d think that paralyzing a super villain would be the end of the battle, wouldn’t you?”
The dour mood between the two of us dissolves and Mae shares a laugh with me. She rubs the anxiety from her face and glances down at our feet. “It seems like we take away someone’s ability to walk and they just attach jet packs to their legs.”
“We will stop them,” I say, partially psyching myself up and partially truly believing those words. “We need to stop them. We just have to stay out of the public eye. It’s bad enough that The Drone knows who I am. I don’t need the rest of the world getting a hold of my address - or yours. We need to put together our costumes to guard our identities.”
Mae makes a clucking sound with her tongue.
“It’s a good thing I paid attention in Home Economics class,” she says. “And that my mother has a sewing machine.” After this she looks up at me. “And after we have our costumes?”
“We find out where this facility is and take it down once and for all.” I pause in my determination and glance back towards the cave opening. “But, first I think we should round up Austin. I think he needs to be pried away from those cave drawings.”
26
Costumes
“So, what do you think?” asks Mae as she works the sewing machine. “Should I make these pants skin tight?”
This gets me off my seat on her couch, completely abandoning the drawing that I was studying.
“No!” I say, jabbing a finger in her direction. “I’m not wearing anything skin tight - especially not pants!”
She smirks at me and continues sewing a seam. It’s been about a week since we went to the caves. Most of that time was spent working on my outline for Super Guy, and coming up with sketches for our Aberrant costumes. While my outline for the comic is still in need of a few tweaks before submittal, our costumes are essentially finished, with the minor tweaks that Mae is now doing.
“I kind of like skin tight pants,” she taunts. “Are you sure you don’t want me to modify them a bit?”
I snatch the drawing off the coffee table and bring it over to her.
“Positive,” I reply and we both take a look at the drawing of my potential costume. It’s not too flashy. I don’t want to stand out like a sore thumb, or some sort of amateur, but I do want to be memorable. It’s kind of hard to embody the theme of Fallout in a set of clothing, so I settle for a motif that’s reminiscent of Super Guy’s costume. His was mainly uniform-like, with tan pants, a light gray cotton shirt with a lightning bolt across the chest, and some thick boots for if he had to make a crash-landing. Mine is a bit more embellished.
I’ve taken the pants and made them a few shades darker, closer to brown. Mae adds a few pockets, strategically placed, so that I can hide items I might need. There’s a padded pocket for my phone, and also a few tinier ones for chord, a lock pick (something I’ve neglected for a bit) and some of those heat packets that you would put in gloves to warm my hands up if I fly too high again. I can still feel my nerves trying to recover from the time in the atmosphere above the cave system.
As for the shirt, I steal Super Guy’s lightning bolt, making it regal purple. The fabric shines against the dull cotton of the T-shirt, which is fine by me. I want it to stand out, since pulse blasts are my specialty now.
As far as a jacket goes, I have a longer, dark-gray collared jacket that frames the lightning bolt and also keeps me warm. I’m more concerned with heat and also protecting my body in case I get attacked again. There’s no sense in being battered with pieces of asphalt and concrete with nothing to keep me safe. The suit almost reminds me of a construction outfit. It’s main purpose is to keep me warm and protected against sharp materials.
Mae finishes up hemming the pants and moves onto the shirt. She has the lightning bolt laid out, and it’s only a few more minutes of delicate positioning before the piece is securely attached to the shirt. She holds it up for me to see.
“I like it,” she says. “Even though I’m biased with my own handiwork.”
“It’s perfect,” I say, pulling it on. The arms are a little tight, being a T-shirt and all, but once it’s over my head, it fits like a glove. I try moving my arms around, striking a few offensive poses.
“I think you have a new career of producing my outfits,” I say with a smirk. “You already made the shoes for me.”
“And they’re still holding together alright?” asks Mae, motioning for me to hand one over to her. I kick off the shoe and she picks it up off the sewing room carpet. We’re alone, and her father is downstairs watching football highlights. With her mother gone, we don’t expect to be disturbed. If her parents do happen to come in, we’re prepared to say that the costumes are for a comic convention. That will be believable.
So far, so good.
“I think this is holding up well,” says Mae as she tests out the retractable flaps in the soles of my shoes, allowing the flight energy an escape from my toes and heels without completely obliterating my shoes in the process. It would be pretty expensive if I had to buy new shoes after every flight, and even more horrible if I had to take the time to remove my shoes whenever an emergency arises. Where in the world would I store my shoes?
I put the shoe back on and then complete my costume.
“There,” I say. “How do I look?”
Mae watches me turn around, studying me. Then when I make a full revolution, she smiles.
“I think it’s pretty good for what we have to work with.”
“Alright!” I do a few punches in the air, testing out the resistance of the full costume. “It feels good when I move around in it.”
I’m still admiring the costume when something occurs to me. “I have one more idea,” I say to Mae.
“What’s that?”
I take the Vestige off my neck and dangle it in between us.
“The Vestige is ultimately the most valuable thing we have, as far as our Aberrant powers are concerned, right?”
She nods.
“Yes? What are you getting at?”
“Well,” I continue, grabbing my jacket off the chair and showing her the cuff of its sleeve. “My father knew that if people found out that the medallion was the source of his powers, just like Bill Flagrant did, then the Vestige would be a constant target. It’s like wearing a diamond necklace in a restaurant filled with jewel thieves. When I got the Vestige, it wasn’t handed to me - I stumbled across it. It was sewn into the lining of my father’s jacket. The sharp edge of the star had worn away at the fabric until it came free. Then the cat was out of the bag.”
“So, you’re saying that you want to hide it again?” asks Mae. “Isn’t that the opposite of what you told your grandpa you were going to do?”
I shake my head.
“You’re not getting it. I want to hide the Vestige inside my costume so that it makes it harder for villains to try and swipe it.”
A look of dawning makes its way onto Mae’s face and she listens as I continue to explain.
“Think about it. The entire time that I was fighting The Drone at the lake, he wasn’t aiming for me. He was aiming for the Vestige. He wanted to take it so that it would strip me of my powers. Even now, I’m sure that he wants me to be powerless. The Drone wants all the power for himself.”
“That’s if he’s acting alone,” says Mae, taking the Vestige from me to examine it. “I thought you said that The Drone wasn’t making swipes at the Vestige in Chinatown?”
The Aberrant Series (Book 2): Super Vision Page 14