Night Legions

by Jeremy Flagg

  Memories came to light, filling in the questions presented by the empty warehouse. They had fought to save Troy, but only found the massacre of Children. They discovered the diary of Eleanor Valentine, who revealed something darker than a political struggle being waged by two superpowers. They fought on the lawn of the White House, determined to put down the president, only to discover Jacob there attempting to usurp her throne.

  The Warden. Every thought grew darker, more grim, as she tried to remember. Conthan had killed the man, a bullet through his forehead. She couldn’t recall why he still concerned her. Despite her mentally pushing away this false world, she knew the influences of another telepath seeped into her mind.

  “Show yourself,” she screamed.

  She spun about, looking for something, anything, anybody. Her heart raced, and the blood started a deafening pounding in her ear. She caught a faint glimmer suspended in the air. Reaching out, she grabbed on to the hair-thin strand and imagined an arrow hurling from her mind toward its source. It struck its target in an explosion of purple sparks. Knocked from some invisible hiding spot, a black woman fell to the ground. She radiated an aura so intense it nearly blinded Vanessa.

  “Dikeledi?” Vanessa remained uncertain where she knew the name from. The woman groaned as she attempted to sit up. Vanessa grabbed at fragmented memories in her disorientation. She recognized the woman as the empath, one of the trio working with the Warden.

  Vanessa closed the distance between them. The fallen woman had already turned her abilities on Vanessa, trying to slow her run and syphon away the rage. She thrust her foot forward, snapping it at the woman’s head. As it connected, a boom sounded, loud enough to shake the metal walls. The broken husk of a woman soared through the air, dissolving until there was nobody left.

  Vanessa focused on the well in the center of her body. She imagined walls rising, circling and sealing it away from the world. The seams along the walls vanished and for a moment, she was free of the empath’s manipulations. Dikeledi’s gifts enabled her to penetrate Vanessa’s immunity to telepaths, but she was only a minor threat compared to the man Vanessa sensed beyond...

  “Beyond what?” she asked aloud.

  It dawned on her that nothing here was real. There was no message. There was no wall. Only a vision from her subconscious, a message to herself. No, she wasn’t in the warehouse. She lay shackled to a metal table in the depths of Genesis Division. The moment the thought crossed her mind, everything fell into place.

  In a white room, her head shot up off the table as she struggled against the restraints holding her hands and feet in place. She tried to flex her wings but they remained locked tightly to the table. Slumped in a chair several feet away, Dikeledi lay motionless except for the rise and fall of her chest. Vanessa pulled harder at the restraints.

  She screamed.

  Her spine bowed, the scream clawing its way from the depths of her lungs. She moved her entire body, jerking at the metal encapsulating her right hand. Her lips tightened as she screamed, her thumb popping out of joint as she struggled. Even with her dislocated digit, the restraints held firm. She eyed the woman slumped in the chair. Vanessa’s above-average strength was the least impressive of her abilities.

  Dikeledi’s body had started to twitch every few seconds, as if she was being shocked. Vanessa reached out, her thoughts projected forward. She imagined her hands caressing the woman, gripping her skull and forcing her way inside. She thought about the texture of the woman’s ebony skin, nearly flawless, rubbing against her own green flesh. She let her thoughts wrap around the unconscious woman like a silk sheet.

  Stand. The simple command flowed through the space between them, dancing along Dikeledi’s skin. Vanessa thought it again, this time less as a suggestion and more as a demand.

  The first image of Dikeledi’s father assaulted Vanessa. She ignored the flashes of the woman’s tragic past. She didn’t care about the woman’s history, her pain, or her justifications. Vanessa only cared about how the woman could serve as the puppet she needed now.

  Dikeledi stood. Her eyes remained closed, her body sluggish. Vanessa’s next thought forced her to step closer.

  It would be a fight to escape—synthetics, perhaps the Warden himself, waited on the other side of the door. She knew the risk, and she needed every tool at her call. Vanessa glanced at the restraints that left her vulnerable looked for a release button for Dikeledi to press.

  She was about to force another command onto the woman when her brown eyes opened. For a moment Vanessa saw her reflection in them. She needed to be free, but she understood there was a game afoot and she wasn’t sure how to play.

  “Wake,” Dikeledi whispered.

  The restraints along her wrists and then feet and finally her wings hissed as they opened. Her chest pounded with the urge to run from the room. Dikeledi didn’t budge, her vacant eyes staring off into the distance. Slowly, Vanessa sat up and got close enough to rest her hand on the other woman’s cheek.

  Vanessa inhaled deeply and held her breath, letting her mind clear. As she exhaled, she whispered, “Wake,” to herself. Between blinks, her eyes opened to a blinding white light. Her arms were bound like they had been before. Instead of Dikeledi passed out in the chair, she and Jacob stood nearby, his hands resting on her shoulders.

  “I keep telling you, she’s far more adept than you believe,” Dikeledi said, a smile stretching across her face. Vanessa didn’t attempt to struggle. The panic flowing through her body wasn’t her own, her emotions tainted by the empath’s meddling. It would take hours, perhaps days, to cleanse herself of the vile manipulations.

  Vanessa focused on the woman’s forehead and imagined a red dot pushing through the skin, sinking into her skull. Dikeledi’s smile vanished. “Jacob,” she said with a pleading sound.

  “You are indeed correct, Dikeledi,” he said.

  Her face contorted in silent pain as Vanessa fired every synapse in the empath’s body. She attempted to scream but lost consciousness. Vanessa turned her attention to Jacob and attempted the same. Unlike the empath, he had an invisible shell surrounding him, preventing her from telepathically penetrating his skull.

  “Your resistance, the perk of being a Child of Nostradamus…” His voice trailed off.

  “I’ve broken through your defenses before.”

  “Have you, though?” he asked. His demeanor was calm. Jacob didn’t move as the woman at his feet whimpered. He had an air of certainty, knowing full well she couldn’t injure him.

  “Or perhaps, each time you’ve had a jaunt up here”—he tapped his temple—

  “you’ve been the guest of honor?”

  Vanessa’s muscles relaxed. She didn’t know what to make of the man in this form. Did anything of the host remain? Or had they agreed to a parasitic collaboration? Something about him had changed, but she couldn’t place her finger on it. She wanted to tear out the Warden’s throat, but she refused to give into her emotions.

  She smiled. “Finding your gift as much a curse, Ivan?”

  His grin faded. She didn’t need to read his mind to know that was why she remained a prisoner. As his body failed him, he had been forced to consume the Warden, a man with no mental abilities. Now, he occupied Jacob, a telepath in his own right. Somehow, being a Child of Nostradamus had given the Warden the ability to jump from one body to the next. Mentalists were as different from Children as they were from humans, almost as if three species simultaneously occupied the Earth and consuming her could make the man unstoppable.

  “You’ll never possess me, Ivan.”

  “In due time, Angel,” he said. “I need to meet with some powerful people.”

  Ignoring Dikeledi at his feet, he stepped toward the door. He turned just enough to show the pin on his lapel. The small American flag shone in the bright lights, and his laughter dripped with condescension and arrogance.

  “I’m going to end the second American Civil War.” He straightened his jacket. “Somebody needs to le
arn, I’m not a president to be fucked with.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  1996

  “Do I qualify as an endangered species?”

  “Ariel, are we seriously having this conversation now?”

  Jonah shoved his back to the wall in the narrow hallway. He held his arm over Ariel, pressing her against the peeling paint and chipped plaster. Then he knelt into a crouch and peeked around the corner toward the open doors of an enormous room. He fell backward as the sound of gunfire filled the space.

  With sharp hisses, something flew past them. The tiny paint-filled projectiles smashed into the wall opposite the doors, sending streaks of red in every direction. Jonah barely dodged the barrage. Ariel grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him further from the opening, helping him to his feet.

  “Not your smartest move.”

  “Girl…”

  They were somewhere deep in a maze of hallways. Up until this point, it had been primarily a dodge and run training session, turning and twisting until they reached the warehouse. There had been little resistance, their opposition seeming scattered and unaware of the infiltration. Jonah had occasionally held up a closed fist, signaling for her to hold position until the barrage cleared.

  She didn’t think it possible, but the Facility had made some startling breakthroughs in her tenure at the research center. The suits she and Jonah wore hugged their bodies, their colors shifting to adapt to their surroundings. It wouldn’t make them invisible to the naked eye, but to the basic security cameras monitoring every corridor, they were like ghosts. She had complained about the tight fit, but seeing the firepower from the enemy, she gladly accepted the spider-weave protecting her from the pelting projectiles.

  “They know we’re here.”

  Understatement of the century, Ariel thought, rolling her eyes. They had only been working together for the last week. The powers that be referred to him as her handler. She found it amusing. Jonah was a skilled marksman, even a good tactician, but handler? She remained far more than he was capable of handling. During their debriefings, their superiors would use phrases like, “Out of control,” “unwieldy,” and “incapable of being managed.” She appreciated the nods to her free spirit.

  “You know what this means?”

  He gripped his gun and gave a slight nod. “Don’t get yourself killed.”

  “It’s your job to keep me alive, not mine,” she said with a smirk.

  Ariel ran her hands through her hair, pushing the fiery red curls out of her face. Several steadying breaths later, she stepped into the open doorway. The warehouse held a plane, stacks of crates, and seventeen metallic-looking humanoids. The closest four raised their weapons, their clawlike fingers pulling triggers in controlled bursts.

  First priority: survive.

  Chin to chest, she tucked and rolled behind a group of crates. At her insistence, she didn’t carry a gun on these missions, preferring her own abilities over a piece of metal. She wondered if that had made a mistake. “Maybe I’ll start carrying a machine gun. Rocket launcher?”

  “Less talking, more paying attention,” a voice said in her ear.

  “Shut up, Jonah.”

  Closing her eyes, she pushed away the sound of splattering red paint. She ignored the scrape of metal feet on pavement and focused on herself. Just below her chest, at the bottom of her ribcage, she visualized a spinning ball of blue energy. Whatever made her special, whatever gave her these gifts, it originated there. Lines of energy radiated from the sphere, as if the ball was hot pavement. The ball flashed.

  Her hair lifted, drifting upward. Her feet left the ground until not even the tips of her toes touched the pavement. She lacked the vocabulary to describe the sensation: amazing, awe-inspiring, powerful, there wasn’t a word to depict the sense of godliness washing over her as she tapped into these abilities. Once upon a time, the power terrified her. Each time she used it, she was certain she’d lose control and hurt somebody. She trained for years; when the marvels of science failed to instruct her, she experimented on her own.

  The crates blocking her from the machines started to shake. She didn’t move her hands or her head; a single thought did the work. A crate slid across the floor, smashing against the first machine and into the second. With her toes hovering inches above the ground, she moved from behind the wooden wall. Two machines raised their weapons and started pulling the triggers.

  Bursts of projectiles rocketed toward her. She imagined each of the small circles freezing in the air. Red dots hung suspended between her and the machines. She moved closer, imagining the each robot’s limbs torn from the torso. The sound of straining metal filled the air as she tore apart the machines.

  “Jesus, Ariel,” the voice in her ear moaned.

  “That’s enough,” another voice boomed, louder than any carnage she caused.

  She flung the remains across the room and hovered toward the robots closest to the plane. Each of them carried crates, loading them into the rear bay. She had no idea what the boxes contained, or why the robots were moving them. Ariel didn’t like machines. Her and Jonah’s mission for this exercise had been to secure the plane.

  “Stop, Ariel,” the voice commanded.

  There were good intentions behind the mechanic humanoids, developed by the Facility to remove soldiers from combat, and for the moment, they were still controlled by humans in a command center. She feared when the machines didn’t need humans. The military had infiltrated the Facility, integrating itself with her home while its goals were constantly at odds with those of the scientists determined to make the world a better place. These synthetics were the personification of that war-mongering empire.

  Scratch that, she hated them.

  Ariel clenched her fist until her nails left tiny half-moons, then lashed out. Under her attack, the head of a robot imploded, smashed to pieces. Its body collapsed to the ground. No one moved to stop her. The supervisor had called for an end to the simulation, but she had a point she needed to prove. If humans were going to use machines to fight a war, she wanted them to see how fragile their first line of defense could be.

  “Do not make me use force, Ariel.”

  The speakers on the wall tore away, leaving exposed wires and a static hissing. She loathed the sound of the man’s voice. Looking up at the viewing window on the second story of the warehouse, she eyed the young man behind the thick glass. She didn’t like him, the man appointed by the military to oversee the development of their newest soldier initiative: Second Prospect.

  One of the machines raised a weapon and fired. The bite of the paintball stung her shoulder. Pain disrupted her focus, sending her feet to the ground with a slight thud. Her abilities terrified the man watching. She didn’t need to read his mind to know he didn’t like her.

  With a bend of her hand, she tried to find her focus and destroy another robot. The two machines she’d sent to the floor with the crate fired again. Ariel fell to the side, unable to concentrate long enough to stop the projectiles. As a girl she had been tranquilized, even Tasered, to break her out of the thralls of her abilities. The girl had grown up, forced to develop an iron will.

  “Ariel,” came Jonah’s voice in her earpiece. “Stand down now.”

  She got onto one knee, clenching both her fists. The attacking machines’ arms bent until damage rendered them useless. She turned her attention to the remaining robots near the airplane. They dropped their weapons and held up their hands. Small openings appeared in their palms as they prepared to launch a volley of darts laced with sedatives. When her powers consumed her, it became the only way to prevent her from going on benders. This time, however, she was entirely in control.

  They wouldn’t harm her, not really. Now that the military had a vested interest in her as a tactical weapon, they wouldn’t risk losing their asset. The underlying fear that a foreign nation would cultivate mentalists before the United States did kept her safe. She’d heard whispers of Russian telekenetics and Middle Eastern pyros. No,
they needed her.

  At a swipe of her arm, the darts speeding toward her changed direction, her telekinesis sending them ten feet to her left. She recognized her lack of focus in the need for grand, sweeping gestures to move objects. If she had a moment to compose herself, she’d be able to take each individual dart and spin it back to its origin.

  The machines moved closer, several splitting off in each direction to try and surround her. Knowing her every weakness, the military exploited her inability to react on multiple fronts. For the past three years, her abilities had been catalogued, and under the tutelage of Dr. Volkov and Mark the military had boxes of reports on her talents.

  The first dart struck her hip, the fine-point needle piercing her body armor. The second sank into her shoulder. She may have been able to stay awake for thirty seconds with the first, but she had never managed to count to ten when struck by two darts. For a moment, she wondered if it should bother her, intimately knowing the effects of tranquilizers. It only dawned on her as she fell to all fours that this might not be considered normal for girls on the verge of adulthood.

  “Stop,” yelled a young man.

  She lowered herself to the ground, hoping to prevent another bruise on her chin like last time. She turned her head and rested her cheek on the cool cement. A darkness washed over her vision, making it difficult to see. The last image: flames of orange and yellow pushing the machines back.

  “Arturo,” she murmured as she lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  2033

  The crowd gathered outside the police precinct, their voices raised. Signs displayed a collection of colorful fonts, covered with less than whimsical sayings. “Death to the Police State,” “More Heart, Less A.I.,” and, “Humans Own These Streets.” The signs rose and fell as the crowd of nearly one hundred New Yorkers resisted.

  Conthan wiped the sweat from his forehead, only to be replaced with fresh tiny beads. A heat wave in July left the city miserable. Even nearing the 8:00 PM curfew, the thermostat hovered near triple digits. The people chanted as they stood in front of the double doors leading into the old stone building. Inside, officers comprised of flesh and blood were few and far between. Instead, the police force in this precinct had been almost entirely swapped out for synthetics, another move cinching the stranglehold the president held over the Big Apple.