“I hate fire.” Sparks’ eyes—magnified by her glasses—spread wide. “Why do you think I ran when the balrog chased us?”
“Uh … because a balrog was chasing us.”
“Fair point. But it’s more than that. When I was on Thryst, I was caught in a house fire. One of the few times I’d made a friend on that cursed planet, the two of us ended up trapped in the attic of a shop. Amelia was younger than me by a few years and she looked up to me. I befriended her because I found her on the streets trying to survive like I had. She needed some guidance. An orphan at a young age, she recognised she’d be better trying her luck on the streets than trusting the authorities.”
As Seb took in the distant look in Sparks’ eyes, his mouth hung open and his breathing slowed down to an almost halt. “So what happened?”
“One of the beams in the attic dropped between us. It was burning white hot within seconds. I couldn’t do anything about it. Even if it weren’t on fire, I didn’t have the strength to lift it, and there wasn’t the space to get past it. We stared at one another for a few seconds before she threw her computer to me.” At that moment, glassy-eyed with grief and slightly lost in her tale, Sparks held her computer up. “Amelia taught me everything I know about hacking and programming. Not only did she give me permission to leave her that day, but she also gave me the ability to thrive in this universe. The only window out of the attic was on my side, so I climbed out of it. The second I got out onto the roof, it sounded like the flames got her. She screamed like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It was a primal noise as if demons had possessed her. By the time I’d made it down to the street, her screaming had stopped. Thick dark smoke billowed out of the window I’d escaped from, and I swear I could smell her burned flesh.”
It felt strange to comfort his small friend because they didn’t have that kind of relationship, but Seb put a hand on Sparks’ slim shoulder anyway. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“I waited a few blocks away and listened to the fire ships arrive to put the fire out. Amelia’s last words to me were ‘Go, and don’t let them catch you’. With no chance of saving her, she wanted to make sure I got far away so I didn’t get taken in by the authorities.”
Seb exhaled hard, deflating as he considered Sparks’ loss.
“Anyway,” Sparks said, “fire freaks me out.”
“I think it would freak me out too if I had witnessed that.”
“And Moses saw that in the simulation,” Sparks said. “He may not have said it, but he saw it. It was lucky I managed to hold it together.”
“I don’t think it’s luck.” Seb pulled her into him in a one-armed hug. “I think you’re a tough cookie. You have one of the most level heads I’ve ever come across, you’re super smart, and you’re brave.”
Stepping out of her memories, Sparks’ purple eyes cleared and she stared up at Seb. “Thank you.”
Seb dipped a nod at her.
“It’s happening again, you know? Despite me promising myself it wouldn’t.”
Although Seb waited for Sparks to elaborate, she didn’t. “What’s happening again?”
“You’re making me like you. Since Amelia died, I promised myself I would never befriend anyone else. Friendships are too painful and I don’t want to be vulnerable like that again. But you’ve broken through.”
After she punched him on the arm, hard enough for it to sting, the tiny Sparks scowled at Seb. “You’d best not bloody die on me now.”
“I’ll try not to.”
When the lift stopped, Sparks removed her glasses, wiped her eyes, and drew a deep breath.
The doors opened and Seb stared out into the hallway in front of them. From where he stood, he could see the hangar with the simulators and his pulse quickened.
“Just keep your head, okay?” Sparks said. “It doesn’t matter what Gurt says, just try to remember he wants to wind you up.”
A glance down at Sparks, and Seb pulled his shoulders back. “Thanks for coming up after me. I needed it.”
Sparks smiled and said, “I know,” before she stepped out of the elevator.
Chapter 7
Unlike the canteen on The Bandolin, the Shadow Order’s canteen got cleaned regularly, had a fraction of the people in it, and served amazing food. Seb stood in line with Sparks, ignored the people around him, and focused on the menu. Pasta bake, roast dinner, curried snarch … thankfully they didn’t have sea slug on the list. Just the thought of it threatened to send a heave through his stomach.
At the front of the queue, Seb’s mouth watered at the sight of the slabs of raw zubber steak. Every other option ceased to exist. He pointed at one and smiled at the chef—a dirty-looking female with a huge stubbled chin—giddy in anticipation of his lunch. “Can I have one of them, please?”
“Bloody, burned, or cremated?” she asked. Her girth stretched wider than her height, and she had three eyes in her fat face. Each one assessed Seb with impatience.
“Bloody.”
The chef nodded, picked the meat up in a pair of tongs, and dropped it on the griddle behind her. Flames rose up and the fat hissed. The air filled with the rich smell of cooking meat.
Sparks opted for fish with grains, which the chef also threw on the griddle.
Like The Bandolin, the Shadow Order’s canteen had been arranged with benches that stretched across the room. The most efficient way to utilise the space, the long rows ran through it in neat lines.
One half of the canteen got used by the R and D guys, while the fighters took the other half. The fighters’ section rotated often. Sometimes it would be fairly busy, while at others, there didn’t seem to be many people there at all. Probably out on missions … or dead.
As Seb took in the place, he did his best to ignore Gurt’s watchful eye, but, inevitably, he met the stare of the Mandulu.
“Just ignore him,” Sparks said, speaking from the side of her mouth.
“He’s such a smug git though.”
“And you think you can change that?”
Seb didn’t reply. Instead, he looked at SA. Although she sat with Gurt, the serene assassin seemed more occupied with her lunch than Gurt’s bullshit. As she chewed her food—her delicate mouth closed and barely moving—Seb sighed. The woman even ate gracefully.
She looked up and Seb nearly looked away, but instead he stared back at her and fought to banish the scowl Gurt had put on his face. Her bioluminescent blue eyes drank him in and her expression changed ever so subtly, almost as if to smile, or at least to think about it.
Seb nearly smiled back until Sparks shoved him and broke him from his trance. When he looked at his friend, she pointed at the angry chef, who held a plate toward him. Heat flushed his cheeks as he took it and said, “Sorry. Thank you.”
The chef had taken the liberty of plating his steak with fried slices of a root vegetable called fairy knuckle squash. They served them often in the canteen. Unlike more traditional root vegetable chips, they seemed to get crispier than most on the outside and as fluffy as a cloud in the middle.
While Seb waited for Sparks to take her lunch, he picked up a tray for each of them, handed one to Sparks, and they both walked over to the benches to sit down to eat.
Of course, they had to pass Gurt on their way to their seat. A glow ran through the Mandulu’s red eyes and a wide grin spread across his bulbous jaw. His overbite pushed his broken horns up over his leathery top lip. “Careful, SA,” Gurt said to the yellow-skinned assassin, “if he thinks you’ve got a gun, he might panic and drop his lunch.”
Sat with a board-straight back, SA didn’t reply. But then, she never replied. Not that it stopped Gurt’s loud guffawing; the idiot found his own jokes so funny he didn’t need anyone else’s approval. Despite the urge to smash his tray over Gurt’s fat head, Seb resisted as he continued past him and the beautiful assassin.
Seb lifted a chip from his plate and chewed on it. The perfect mix of a little bit of salt, a crusty outer edge, and a fluffy ce
ntre made his mouth water. “How does the chef do it every time?” he asked Sparks.
Before Sparks could reply, a big, thick tree trunk of a leg shot out in front of Seb and he tripped over it. Everything flipped into slow motion, and although he didn’t fall, he watched his tray fly through the air, the plate lift from the tray, and all of his food lift from the plate. As the steak took on its own trajectory, his heart sank.
Before his dinner had crashed to the floor, Seb turned to Gurt and threw his arms wide.
The large Mandulu—still in slow motion—got to his feet as the tray smashed down. Although Gurt’s chin stood prominent in Seb’s vision, he got distracted by a weak spot on the Mandulu’s right knee. It had to be a hidden injury. It looked like it wouldn’t take much to ruin it for good.
Seb returned his attention to the Gurt’s chin. Best to knock the fool out than to paralyse him permanently, regardless of how much he hated him.
With more time to think than anyone else, Seb looked at the people in the canteen. Most of the R and D department seemed to be taking their break at that point, and—like the other staff and the few Shadow Order recruits there—they all looked at Seb and Gurt.
Despite taking deep breaths, Seb couldn’t calm his pulse. It boomed as a wet swell through his temples. Fists curled into balls and his jaw locked tight, he readied himself to swing for his nemesis.
Just before he attacked Gurt, Seb caught the blue flash of Sparks’ taser. When he looked down at his small friend, he saw her standing with the plastic device in her hand and one eyebrow raised. She’d use it on him if she had to. Anything to make sure he didn’t fight Gurt.
The world instantly returned to a normal speed and Seb stepped away. Another look at those in the canteen and one final glance at SA, and he shook his head. “You’re a waste of space.”
“A waste of space would be someone working for an intergalactic team that couldn’t shoot straight in a dogfight. Oh … wait …”
The sides of Seb’s vision blurred again and his heart raced. He forced away the slowing down of his world and walked past both his spilled dinner and the arrogant Mandulu. It took all he had to refrain from kicking his weak knee and putting the dumb creature out of the Shadow Order for good.
Although Seb didn’t look around, he recognised the only sound in the silence as the gentle tap of Sparks’ footsteps as she followed him out of the canteen.
Chapter 8
Seb stepped into his cubed room and shivered. He couldn’t ever find comfort in the small space. Tracks ran along the plain chrome walls to allow the room to form into several different arrangements. A panel had been screwed into the wall opposite the door. Covered in buttons and lights, it glowed different colours in response to different requests.
Because of the sparseness of the small room, the sound of Seb’s boots echoed in the hard and empty space as he strode over to the buttons. A large green one read ‘Living Room’ on its plastic front, so he pressed it. A circle had been marked on the floor, which Seb currently stood in. Sparks ran over to join him. As soon as she stepped into it, the entire panel turned red to indicate they shouldn’t move. Whirs and clicks sounded out and the room came to life. As long as they remained within the circle, it would transform without any problems.
First, a gap opened up in the wall opposite them and a three-seater sofa slid out. Then, a panel glided across another wall to reveal a large-screen television. Next, two small tables rose from the floor on either side of the sofa. Each had a lamp turned down low. A rug fell from the ceiling, blew out a gust of wind as it dropped, and landed perfectly in the centre of the room with a loud plop. Finally, the lighting dipped to suit the ambiance of the space.
Once the setup had been completed, the red glow to the panel of buttons turned green, allowing Seb and Sparks to exit the circle. They both walked straight to the soft sofa and fell onto it.
As Seb sank into the comfy cushions, he stared straight ahead. A music video played out on the television. The singer—a female with what looked like large flaccid horns hanging down either side of her head all the way to her shoulders—pranced about like a pony as she sang. “What planet is she from?” he asked.
Sparks continued to watch the screen and offered him a lethargic shrug. She then turned to look at him. “You did well to walk away from the canteen.”
Just the mention of the canteen increased Seb’s pulse. “What? I would have done well to knock Gurt out. But you didn’t give me that choice, did you?”
“If you’d have done that, you’d be kicked out of this program. They’d send you back to The Black Hole. Gurt wants you to lose your temper. If you didn’t threaten him so much, then maybe he wouldn’t give a damn. Whatever it is you have, it rattles him.”
With his attention still on the screen, Seb said, “I’ve always fought since I was a little kid.”
Although Seb could feel Sparks continue to look at him, she didn’t respond.
“Bernard Hendricks was two years older than me and he went for me every single day. At lunchtime, he’d go out of his way to barge into me and intimidate me.” The thought of his days at school and the humiliation he felt because of how Bernard treated him raised Seb’s body temperature. “I finally snapped. I lost it and beat the crap out of him. It felt amazing. I realised I was good at fighting from that day. I’d found my talent.”
“Beating people up?”
“More than that. I was good at it. Hell, I am good at it.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Sparks said.
The words almost stuck in Seb’s throat, but he forced them out. If he could pick someone to tell all of this to for the first time, Sparks seemed like the best person. “It’s more than just being able to fight.”
Sparks laughed and turned back to the bright television opposite them. “What, like a superpower or something?”
Seb looked at her, and when she looked back, the smile fell from her face.
“I think the ability comes from my mum,” Seb said. “She wasn’t human, although she looked it. She wouldn’t tell me which planet she came from.”
Sparks’ mouth hung open as she looked at Seb, but she didn’t reply.
“My brother has my abilities too, or at least, I think he does. I don’t think my dad had them. I’ve never spoken about this to anyone before.”
“You’re not really speaking to me about it either,” Sparks said. “I can see you want to tell me something, but you’re being very cryptic.”
A deep breath and Seb flushed hot. He looked at Sparks and opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come. Her wide-eyed anticipation of what he had to say threw him off, so he stared at his lap. “When I fight, time slows down.”
Silence.
“Sounds crazy, right? But it does.”
Silence.
“Whenever I’m in that fighting state, my opponents move like they’re stuck in treacle. Also, I can see the weak spots on them and know exactly where to hit them.”
Sparks seemed to mull over what he’d said before she replied. “That makes sense.” She looked him up and down. “No offence, but I did wonder how you won fights you shouldn’t have. I can tell you, it’s pretty impressive to watch. Dizzying even.”
It would probably sound arrogant to admit that he’d like to see it from her perspective, but having only ever seen his fights through his own eyes, he constantly wondered how it looked from the outside.
A shift again on the sofa and Sparks leaned toward Seb. “Why haven’t you told anyone before?”
“I dunno; it’s just never come up, I suppose. Also, I don’t want to get banned from the fighting pits. Until just recently, that was how I made my money. I may need to go back to them at some point. And”—Seb turned his hands over one another—“I’ve never had anyone I can trust enough before.”
From the briefest glance at Sparks, Seb saw her eyes fill with tears. He continued, “I don’t know how long I can go on letting Gurt embarrass me like he has been. Every time he goads
me, the world slows down and all I want to do is lay him out. I’m not sure I can resist the urge forever.”
Despite the size of the sofa and the gap separating them, when Sparks reached across, her long fingers easily touched Seb’s arm. “You’re doing so well. I’ve wanted to attack Gurt and he barely knows I exist. I don’t know how you’re keeping your head, but it takes a stronger person to do that than it does to lose their temper. Think about all of the times you’ve lost your rag in the past, that’s the easy part. But showing restraint …”
A slideshow of memories flashed through Seb’s mind. In every one of them, he stood victorious over some creature. Some of the fights started for ridiculous reasons like something as trivial as a spilled drink. The memories left a dull lump as a rock in his guts. “Despite the rush of the fight, I often feel empty afterwards. Unless I’m fighting to save someone’s life or I’m in the pits. Then I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Although Sparks opened her mouth to respond, Seb said, “But the problem I’m having when we simulate dogfights is that my power doesn’t work. That’s why we keep on failing. Everything seems to move so fast, I just can’t keep track of it. I don’t know what I’ll do when we get in that situation for real.”
Sparks held her bottom lip in a pinch as if she’d be able to think up an answer for him. “I don’t know either, but we’ll work something out. There’s nothing we can’t overcome as a team.”
The statement sounded about as empty as the feeling that occupied Seb’s stomach, and he shrugged. What could Sparks do to help him shoot better? Their current failings rested squarely on his shoulders. “I’m sorry to be a bore, Sparks, but it’s been a long day. I just want to go to bed now. I know it’s a pain for you because you’ll have to go to bed too.”
“Are you okay if I stay on the sofa to watch television?” Sparks asked.
Seb nodded.
Sparks grabbed her mini-computer and tapped it so it came to life. Her fingers skittered over the touch screen and the panel on the wall cycled through a series of colours in response. A few seconds later the sofa shifted forward with Seb and Sparks on it. The bunkbeds they slept in rose from the floor behind them.
The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 169