“You’re putting me in charge?” He couldn’t hide the shock on his face. She stood up and walked over to him. She was the most powerful woman in the world, and she was striding toward him, offering him an opportunity far beyond his years of experience.
“Can you think of another man for the job?”
He avoided her eyes as he took the files. She rested a hand on his shoulder, staring him straight in the eye. “I am taking my chances with you, Mr. Davis. Do not disappoint me.”
“No, Madame President.”
She shook his hand. He turned to walk toward the door. One of the military men at the table cleared his throat. “What’s the name of this prison you’re suggesting?”
Mark tried to hide his chuckle. The military was obsessed with giving code names to any initiative they partook in. There were code names for code names. They loved to play their games of deceit, something he was obviously not very well versed in.
“The place I am building,” he corrected, “will only be known as The Facility.” He clutched the folder in his hand and pushed the door leading out into the hallway. He looked through the glass to see the president smiling. She was pleased with him, but the smile spread across her lips looked wrong, as if there was more going on behind the scenes.
The Secret Service agents escorted him out of the building. He wiped his hand off on his pants. He had met with the last person to see Eleanor alive. The woman hadn’t steered him wrong; she had been right at every turn. He knew he played a dangerous game getting close to the woman who signed the executive order killing the mentalists. He wished he had guidance at this point, something to show him he was making the right move.
“I hope this was part of your plan, Eleanor,” he muttered under his breath.
***
Jasmine rested her hand on the glass staring into the operating room. Her teammate’s body writhed in agony as he screamed out. His voice was muffled by the transparent doors, but she couldn’t stop seeing what was transpiring. Her skin crawled. She continued staring at him, determined to overcome the challenge her stomach was proposing.
She watched as the scientist in the room tore away at the Corpsman’s pants, pulling them back from the horribly broken limb. There were bits of splintered bone sticking out from his knee and blood pooled on the floor beneath him. The scientist yelled to his two assistants, who began attaching plugs and diodes to the man.
The white coats moved about the operating room, grabbing instruments and beginning to diagnose his situation. She knew the outcome. His humanity began to slip away the moment he reached the Body Shop. They would ignore his modifications plan, forgetting to check the “No Enhancement” barcode on his neck.
At least you’ll be alive to complain, she thought.
She almost believed the people inside the room were doctors. They moved like a trauma unit she had seen as a child. Glass computer screens replaced the cloth curtains that had existed once upon a time in emergency rooms. Surgeons were a dying breed as more financially advanced hospitals left behind doctors and nurses for coders and software developers.
His humanity vanished as the scientist plunged a needle into the thigh of the man’s broken leg. As the plunger pushed down, he began to scream, his spine bowing, threatening to hurl himself from the table.
The nanites, mini programmers, scoured his veins, beginning to rob him of his soul.
One of the assistants held out a clear plastic panel, high enough that all could see. The panel snapped to life as an image appeared. Clearer and clearer, Jasmine could see the musculature and circulatory system of her comrade. With only a few taps on the screen, the blood flow came to an end. The man in the white jacket held a small tool to the man’s leg and the laser began to cut away at the soldier’s flesh.
Jasmine stared at the scene, trying not to blink. Her eyes watered at the smell of burning flesh. His body was being consumed by the machines of godless men. As the assistant handed the doctor a metal leg, she knew he would begin the slippery slope to becoming a machine. At first he would comment on how amazing it was to walk again. He would be impressed with the hydraulics and how much sturdier it was than his other leg. Then he would replace the weaker leg.
He would be persuaded to give up his soft baby blue eyes in place for synthetic eye-shaped cameras. He would opt for the cognitive process enhancers that would allow him to react faster in the field, saying, “It’ll keep me alive.”
Jasmine turned away from the door. She tried to justify wrapping her arms around herself and hugging tightly. She tried convince herself she was trying to settle her stomach. She willed herself not to cry. Her teammate would survive, but she mourned him giving away the one thing she craved.
She took a steadying breath and leaned her head back against the sheet metal coating the walls as she slid down to the ground. She let her hand rest on the base of her skull where a small scar revealed a violation on her body. On the other side of her skin, a piece of technology kept her subjected to the authority of her owners. Her epidermis tightened, absorbing the properties of the metal against her back, and she welcomed the pain rushing through her body. She breathed through clenched teeth as the transformation happened. She slammed her fist into the ground, leaving a dent where her knuckles connected.
“More human than you,” she whispered, trying to convince herself.
Chapter Twelve
May 17th, 2032 10:30PM
Pain pushed through her brain as teeth clamped down, grinding back and forth in an effort to stifle a scream. The jolt of electricity forced her to her knees, while the bile built in her throat until she threw up on the grates beneath her. She continued to cry out as pain burned into the base of her skull. She tried to look up but her muscles seized, betraying her.
“Why?”
She opened her mouth to answer but found herself vomiting again. As fast as the searing jolts had started, they vanished. She gasped, waiting for them to return a second time. Her skin was on fire as she tried to lift her head, the echo of pain reminding her just how bad it could get.
The man in the suit threatened to push the spot on the back of his hand, a button linked to her implant. She winced at the impending convulsion but he stopped short and sneered at her. “I’ll ask you again, Jasmine…” He paused for a moment, his hand dancing around the spot on his hand. “Why did you let them get away?”
“I didn’t,” she growled.
“Who gave the order for the guards on the wall to stop firing?”
She looked at the smug smile on his face. “Why would I ask them to stop?”
“Because…”
“I’m invincible,” she interrupted. “Why would I tell them to stop firing?”
“The glory?” he mused.
His entire body froze. His brain was being fed information. She guessed it was a video feed of the events as they had played out. He didn’t want her to answer the question, he wanted to continue to play with her. What she called torture he referred to as scientific curiosity.
“So you’re right.”
“Didn’t think about that before you decided to cook me?”
He almost cracked a smile. “And miss a chance to perform another round of tests on you, Jasmine? Never.”
She spat onto the floor as she pushed her way to her feet. “Why the hell would the guards stand down?”
He closed his eyes, focusing on the information being fed into his brain. He sorted through personnel files and looked over the radio logs and video feeds of several cameras. “The moment you hit the ground, it seems all radio chatter ceased. There was no motion or discussion across the radios. All the guards simply stopped.”
“I get worried when the brains of the operation doesn’t have an answer,” she said.
“Curious…”
***
Conthan opened his eyes. He was in a room he didn’t remember entering. It was dark. He spun around, looking for the door. He spun around again to a single chair in the middle of the room. He reache
d out in the darkness, fearful that his eyes were playing tricks on him “Hello,” he whispered.
The chair stood out against the darkness as if an unseen light source was shining down on it. Between his blinks, Sarah appeared, staring blankly off into space. He shook his head, recalling how similar this was to when Vanessa had first appeared in his head. He knelt in front of Sarah and realized she was unaware of him. “Sarah, can you hear me?”
She was as unresponsive as she had been in the research facility. He reached up to touch the spot of smooth skin on her cheek when he saw the dark figure behind her. He slowly stood. Wisps of smoke rolled from the shadows, wrapping around Sarah as if they were elongated fingers. “What do you want?”
The figure laughed. The sound was deep and boomed like they were in a small room. The figure faded into the background, but the sound grew louder and louder. Conthan finally had to cover his ears to stop the pain, but the sound wasn’t from outside, it was emanating from inside his head.
“Who are you?”
“I am all,” said the voice. The shadows encompassed Conthan, wrapping around his feet, threatening to crawl up his body. The chill rushed along his skin, causing him to shiver. The darkness continued creeping inch by inch, threatening to consume him. He fought to push it down, but his limbs began to freeze, his muscles unwilling to cooperate.
Conthan shot up in his bed, jolted awake from the scene in his dream. His heart raced. His face dripped with sweat while his limbs continued to feel the chill. He gripped the sheets around him, relieved as the warm cloth beneath his hand grounded him. He was thankful there was a light on in the room. “Now where am I?”
Last thing he remembered was the firefight in the facility yard. He remembered hearing the woman speak to him and seeing the black discs. He looked down to his hands, startled to think he was capable of doing those things.
He recalled the sensations vibrating through his body before the disc opened. A tingle emerged at the base of his skull, a reminder of what it took to summon his abilities. He stared at his hands in disbelief. “I’m a teleporter?”
Yes.
He jumped at the voice. “What the hell? No more speaking in my head.”
“So be it,” came a much harsher voice.
The figure stood in the door. “Who are you?” he asked.
He watched as the woman from his mind came forward. Dark robes wrapped around her body, which almost glided into the room, appearing otherworldly. He tightened his fist on the sheets to remind himself he was still in reality.
“My name is Vanessa.”
“A telepath?”
“Until earlier today…” She paused, “I would have said the one and only.”
She must have been in her mid-forties. Her hair was a bright blonde and flowed down behind her shoulders. The robes wrapped tightly around her body and bunched into a collar, hiding the bottom of her face. It was surreal to see a woman he had only seen in his dreams up to this point.
“You look a little different without the wings,” he mused, “or the sword.”
“I keep the sword locked away,” she said, her eyes giving away her grin.
He got up out of bed and grabbed his leather jacket from the floor next to the mattress. He was easily a few inches taller than her, but he was surprised at how intimidating the woman before him appeared. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Thank you would be a start.”
He blushed at her direct nature. “So, thanks for not letting the Warden kill me, and then those guards, and I take it you had something to do with the rescue squad.”
She turned to look out the window. “We try to protect our own.”
He thought about the statement. A day ago he was a human like ninety-nine percent of the world and today he was one of the minority. He was one of those people on the television, hunted down and put into places like the Facility. He was like Sarah.
“The Children of Nostradamus.”
He froze. “You can read my thoughts?”
She nodded. “I can’t shut it off.” She looked him in the eye. “At best, I can only sift through the chaos in each of your minds.”
“Nothing I think is ever safe around you?”
She smiled. “Nothing.”
Dammit, he thought.
Indeed.
“Okay, enough of that.”
“You have never been curious? Never questioned why you didn’t get sick as a child? Or perhaps why your foster mother would take you out of school for days at a time for no reason?”
He began to reply and stopped. “How’d you know that?”
“Your story isn’t unique,” she said. She turned back to the window. “As the Children of Nostradamus began to emerge, those with suspecting and loving parents hid them away. Like any good parent, she sought to protect you.”
“Are you brain scanning me or something?”
She shook her head slowly. “Dwayne’s father did the same for him. As his abilities manifested, he was pulled from school. Skits, on the other hand, exhibited no abilities until a neighbor caught her burning through a car door.”
“You mean my mother knew I could teleport?”
She let out a condescending laugh. “They keep you in the dark, don’t they?”
He waited for her to explain.
“Do you know where we are, Conthan?”
He looked out the window to the skyline. It reminded him of New York City, but without all the modernization. The buildings, some spanning over thirty stories, were in disrepair. The street was filled with cars and grass grew through the middle of the street. He tried to imagine where on the globe they could be.
“The Danger Zone.”
He instinctively looked down to the small badge still pinned to his shirt. The color indicator was now black, a sign he was going to die from radiation poisoning. She wasn’t nearly as panicked as he pulled the badge off his shirt. She took the badge and tossed it from the window.
“Where the Children of Nostradamus have hundreds of recorded abilities, there are certain things we all have in common. We have a natural immunity to all illnesses. We have higher endurance, we heal quicker, and because of this…”
“We can survive radiation.”
She nodded. “Our bodies have adapted so that our abilities do not kill us. Otherwise”—she pointed out the window to a bar across the street—“Dwayne and Skits’s abilities would incinerate their bodies.”
He had never stopped to think about the physiology behind the abilities of powered people. He simply thought, they can because, well, that’s what they do.
She chuckled again. “If only we were so lucky.”
“How do you know all this?”
“We are not all common folk,” she admitted. “For some time we had several doctors here. Most of what I know I’ve learned from reading their notes. Unlike the research facility, they truthfully studied our abilities.”
“What does the research facility do?”
“I would have guessed they were studying powered people to weaponize them as a new form of biological warfare.” She paused. She closed her eyes for a long period and opened them again. “Now, I have no idea.”
Conthan looked down at his hands. “Is it safe to use it?”
She nodded. “There are very few people here anymore. The danger of your power to any living object is negligible.”
“What about the doctors?”
“Dead.”
He wanted to ask, but he could tell the wound was still fresh. His observation answered his own question. “Sorry.”
“You are an astute young man.”
He looked out the window to see a light shining from the bar across the street. He was amazed there were streetlights still functioning in the city. The sight of a deserted Boston saddened his heart.
“Dwayne keeps them running. We were a community for some time. We had doctors, engineers, even a member of the government. We rescued who we could. We were stronger for them. We have lost
many during rescues, others, we lost to their own despair.”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She was beautiful and at the same time a sadness caused by burden hung on her shoulders. He could swear for a moment the blonde hair was gone and her face emerged a sickly green. As he turned his head, she appeared normal again; had it been a figment of his imagination?
She held her finger up to her hidden mouth. “Shhh, it’s our secret.”
Without warning, she jumped from the window. He leaned out to see the red robes plummeting toward the ground. He wasn’t sure how she had hidden them in the room, but white wings spread wide and she sailed through the street. Her body glided to where streetlights faded into nothingness.
“Okay, it officially got crazier.”
Conthan pulled on his jacket and ran out of the room and down the hallway to the stairs. He charged through the exit door and jumped down stair after stair until he reached the bottom. Despite the exterior of the building looking as if it hadn’t been touched in decades, the interior was fairly well taken care of. The hotel was always meant to look old, classic, and represent a period of decadence. Now, with the outsides decaying, it appeared as if it were frozen in a time the world had forgotten. Emerging from the building, he could see that it was indeed a dead city. Lights flickered, but there was only him to appreciate their fight against the darkness.
He walked toward the building. Inside, Dwayne, Alyssa and Skits were gathered around the bar. He was amused by the sight of Alyssa behind the counter mixing drinks. The scene before him looked like a twisted interpretation of his favorite Hopper painting.
“Nighthawks,” he mumbled to himself.
Skits waved to him. He thought about the painting hanging in Chicago. Standing in front of the masterpiece had been the first time he had cried before art. He had always wanted to go back after art school and see if his appreciation for that painting had changed. Now, it seemed his future was taking a much darker turn and the only way he’d see it was if he could figure out how to teleport inside.
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