by Jeremy Flagg
Dwayne wasn’t in much better shape than him, sucking in air over and over again. The large man, however, didn’t slow. He quickly crossed his arms over his chest in an X, giving a slight smile. Conthan returned the gesture. Being involved with a man he couldn’t touch the majority of time resulted in unusual methods of displaying affection. Even if dating a man capable of shooting lightning from his fingertips still didn’t rank as his weirdest relationship.
Outside the elevator shaft, the brilliant white floor and glass walls with white ceiling made him squint. Four of Jacob’s psycho killers lay dead on the floor, a red splatter standing out against the perfect white tile. It took Conthan a moment to realize there were no lights in the room; the ceiling and the floor themselves illuminated the space. The sterile environment reminded him of the white room at the Facility where he last visited Sarah.
“They’re not like the others,” Alyssa said, holding a bloody arm. “The creepy bastards talked.”
Conthan dipped down and flipped open a bomber jacket, pulling at the black t-shirt underneath, tearing the fabric. With a strip in hand, he started wrapping her arm, trying to focus on bandaging the wound.
“You should be fine.” He had no idea. Children had a durability beyond humans, but he'd seen far too many bodies to believe they were impervious.
Gretchen blinked into sight. “Guys, the floor is empty. I couldn’t find anybody.”
“Any sign of him?” asked Dwayne.
She shook her head. “There are security doors at the end of the room. Going to need somebody with more oomph to get through those fuckers.”
Dwayne pointed to Gretchen and Skits. Before he finished a series of gestures, the former grabbed the latter's hand and they vanished. When Conthan first discovered a buddy from art school as a fellow Child, he’d wondered about the usefulness of invisibility. Now, he found himself jealous of how adept she’d become. She could barely defend herself in hand-to-hand combat, but in open spaces, the woman was crafty.
“Alyssa, can you fight?” Dwayne asked.
She flexed her cut forearm, wincing at the pain. “Yes.”
“This is a trap,” he said. “There’s no way Jacob would give everybody the day off.”
Alyssa pointed to a cup of coffee inside the guard’s station, wisps of steam rising off it. Dwayne pushed away from a glass wall and started navigating through the maze of clear barriers.
On lab benches, gadgets and parts of synthetics were in various states of construction. More than one cube had a three-dimensional schematic. Conthan wondered if they should stop and grab the information. Perhaps some of it would be useful to Needles. Alyssa touched his hand, urging him forward. The welcoming distractions kept him from concentrating on their mission.
“Cameras,” Alyssa said. Conthan caught the black specks in the ceiling. Of course, with Jacob’s paranoia, he’d have the entire place wired. Nothing happened beneath Jacob without him knowing.
A wall of monitors acted as the only opaque structure in the space. Screens flashed, showing falling stock prices and promotional videos from Genesis Division. They all froze as the screens blinked off for a moment and came back with aerial views of buildings.
“Chicago,” Alyssa whispered.
Explosions erupted among the skyscrapers. The screens showed dots, a mass of red and blue tiny blips on the map. Hundreds of red dots moved through the streets in between buildings. The blue dots were overwhelmed and one by one they vanished. Dwayne gasped. The skirmish ended in seconds, the red dots bulldozing through the opposition.
“Holy shit,” Conthan said.
“They’re being slaughtered,” Alyssa said. “There are more synthetics than we suspected.”
“We need to hurry,” Dwayne said.
On the other side of the monitors, a massive blast door separated them from their goal. Jacob’s most valuable asset was stored somewhere far more secure than an open floor of scientists. Dwayne gave it a thump, tiny bolts of electricity jumping from his arm.
“Nope, that’s not being blown open.”
Conthan imagined himself reaching into his chest, dipping his hands in the water of the well. The abundance of power wanted to be used, to be spilled out. A portal opened millimeters from the door. Four feet on the other side, another appeared. He’d been using his abilities all evening, teleporting Jasmine and even Needles and his robotic army, but the well he used to visualize his powers never seemed to empty. Something had changed since the fort.
“Gretchen, take Alyssa. Conthan is with me.”
Alyssa vanished into Gretchen’s realm of desaturation. Her intuitive knowledge of where to be and how to work with the team made it seem she’d been with them for years. He wondered how often he was inches from bumping into her, blinking in and out of sight. No matter where they were, she was always near, ready, their unseen weapon.
The chill of the portal raised a shiver. Dwayne already worked his way down a long hallway, doors lining each side. He inspected a small computer screen to the right of a door.
The first door to Conthan’s right had a flashing screen. “Paul Gallentine. Neural Linguistic Analysis. DNA Mapped. 100%. Operation 80%.”
“They’re experimenting on Children,” Conthan said.
“Not surprised.”
Conthan walked to the next screen. A handprint scanner and an eye scanner blinked red as they determined his lack of access. The screen, however, continued to flash information about the occupant. Behind each door a Child was held hostage. He contemplated opening a portal and reaching through to free them.
“What is photon emission? Isn’t that like light?”
“Yeah,” Dwayne asked. “Why?”
“Neural Linguistics? Photon Emissions? Those seem like pretty specific powers to have locked away in your basement.”
“Radio broadcasting.” Dwayne eyed each panel more closely. Conthan pushed past him, searching the last of them, concentrating on the names. There were five doors on each side and one at the end of the hallway.
“What?” asked Dwayne.
“They’re a computer.”
“Who?” Dwayne didn’t understand.
“All of them. They’re what makes this place run, or the synthetics, or something. They’ve made living computers out of Children.”
Conthan tore open a portal at the last door and stepped through. Inside, he encountered the man who trained him to be a superhero.
Metal threads from the ceiling anchored into Dav5d’s shoulders and clavicles, his upper torso rested on an illuminated glass pillar. His arms were stretched out wide, his hands removed and wires and tubes inserted in their place. The most horrifying part was the lack of his friend’s lower body, a massive chunk of Dav5d’s humanity discarded as unnecessary. In the glass pillar Conthan could make out his spine, but the majority of his organs had been removed.
“Dav5d,” he whispered, “what have they done to you?”
Dwayne stepped through the portal and gasped at the sight of the man. They weren’t sure if Vanessa had been right, if the man controlled the synthetics. Now, seeing him plugged into computers like a chipboard, they were certain, Dav5d was the second most terrifying villain they faced.
“Does he know? I mean, is he even aware?”
Dwayne shrugged his shoulders.
There was no lack of power coursing through his veins. Conthan raised his hand, imagining a portal dissecting Dav5d’s brain. The power wanted release. His friend’s vacant eyes, the steady breathing, he couldn’t separate the man from the machine. He wanted to free the man, to end this misery, but his confidence wavered. Conthan found a line he couldn’t cross.
“Go with the others, I’ve got this.”
“I’m not—”
“Trust me, Conthan. I’ve got this.”
Dwayne turned slowly, a sympathetic look on his face. Conthan wanted to thank him for doing what he couldn’t. Once upon a time, he'd hated Dwayne’s ability to turn off his emotions, but not today. He crossed his
arms over his chest in an X and Dwayne nodded. Dav5d’s blank face made no acknowledgement of him as he stepped backward through the portal.
“Now to find Vanessa,” he said, hoping she was in better condition than her lover.
* * * * *
Dwayne waited for the portal to close. Alone with the machines, Dav5d’s ragged breathing warded away the silence. Dwayne hesitated, letting the severity of the situation set in. The mission had stopped being about rescuing his friend. Any hope of swooping in and saving the day vanished the moment he saw the man mounted to computers like a piece of living machinery.
“Dav5d.” He lost count of the bodies left in his wake. At first, not knowing how many people he killed kept him awake at night. Now, now not knowing the number was the only thing letting him sleep. So many dead, but none of them had been a friend.
“Can you hear me?”
Sweat beaded along Dav5d’s brow, small trickles running down the side of his face. His dark skin stood in sharp contrast to the white of the room, similar to the brown of his iris against the white of his sclera. Nothing about the man showed any signs of awareness. Dwayne leaned in, his face close enough to feel the heat of Dav5d exhaling. The eyes didn't dart, and no muscle twitched, in what seemed to be a vacant shell.
“Dav5d, if you can hear me, I have to stop you. You’re hurting people.” As Dwayne wiped away the sweat from the man’s face, a jolt of electricity snapped against Dav5d's cheek. No hiss. No flinching. The body being kept alive in this room didn’t house Dav5d’s mind.
Dwayne wanted to put his hand on the man’s chest and push. Electricity would sink into the skin, seize the heart, and the connected machines would die. Dav5d didn’t have the ability to feel pain; the million probabilities moving through his head, the sheer computing power of his brain, could outthink pain. It would be a quick death, but Dwayne found he needed to provide some sort of last rites.
“I always thought you were an odd little man. You had quirks before your powers kicked in. But that was part of your charm. You weren’t concerned with being different, you simply were. The world would be better off with more people like you.”
Dwayne’s hand slid to the man’s chest, the beating of Dav5d’s heart vibrant and strong. Though the majority of his body was missing, the machines assured Dav5d would not die. The Warden wouldn’t risk losing the man controlling his army. The only thing Dwayne couldn’t figure out: how had the telepath broken the most amazing intellect on the planet?
“I struggled making sense of this, of us. Eleanor had this master plan and I didn’t give a shit about any of it. The first time you tried to explain it, you said you were dumbing it down to make it easy. I admit, I still don’t have any clue what you were talking about. You are a hard man to follow. There will never be another like you.”
Dwayne squeezed his eyes shut and the tears rolling down his face sizzled, burned away by his powers. The skin between Dav5d’s pecs had a tightness. The hours training his body to be as masterful as his mind had never paid off in combat, but they made him just shy of an Adonis. Electricity pulsed through Dwayne's hand, working its way into the muscle. With just a slight push, it would all be over.
One. Slight. Push.
Dav5d’s eyes returned from the thousand-yard stare. “The darkness.” Barely more than a whisper.
Dwayne wrapped both hands around the back of the man’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. A slight laugh prevented him from crying. “Dav5d, you’re in there. We can—”
“The darkness. It’s here.”
“I know, the military is fighting back. We can win this, but I need your help.”
“Here.”
Dav5d didn’t speak in cryptic metaphors. It shouldn’t surprise him; the man had always been forthright. Here, in this building, whatever the darkness Eleanor spoke of, it was nearby. It didn’t change anything. Dav5d was there, alive, aware of the world around him.
“We need to get you—”
“I see them all. I’ve killed eighteen thousand, seven hundred and thirteen Marines tonight. I will eradicate them all. There is a three percent margin for failure.”
Dwayne’s arms shook. Dav5d made it clear the military wouldn’t be able to defeat him. Whatever Jacob, no, the Warden, whatever the vile man did to the Child had turned him into a tool without a conscience. Whatever remained of Dav5d, it couldn’t break free.
“I’m sorry.”
“Termination of this Dav5d interface, likelihood 100%.”
The electricity pushed from the palms of his hands, surging through his companion. Dav5d’s muscles tensed, his chest arching as electricity sought an exit. As it pushed through his limbs and down his torso, the machines beeped, flashing red. A monitor sparked and wailed an alarm. Dav5d’s body slumped, life fleeing the husk. With another push, lightning jumped from Dwayne’s body, striking the machines, setting them ablaze.
Smoke darkened the room as machines spewed black clouds. Dwayne continued to hold his friend, whispering, “I’m sorry,” over and over again. Dav5d, one of the originals, the man who promised everything would work out, and because of his powers, knew it to be true, stopped moving. The pillar held the corpse upright, but Dwayne understood, the parts of Dav5d that made him an individual had been wiped away long ago.
Pulling away from the body, Dwayne screamed. He lowered into a crouch, forcing more air from his lungs until he thought he might collapse. Mercy—he clung to the word, hoping it’d alleviate the weight pressing his chest. It had been the necessary thing to do, the merciful option. Still, his heart broke. The skin on Dav5d’s chest puffed up in a perfect replica of Dwayne’s hand, a reminder of who killed him. Mercy faded from his thoughts, and Dwayne focused on a single word.
Killer.
* * * * *
Knuckles cracked against the synthetic’s neck, tearing the entirety of its head free. The soulless machines were horrific on their own, but the headless body resembled a spider more than it did a man. Jasmine hated spiders.
A claw-like hand slammed her face. Latching on to its wrist, she pulled the hand back with ease. A flick of her wrist and the arm snapped, bent beyond use. Pushing forward, she managed to get her footing and lift herself from the ground. Her free hand jabbed, fingertips extended, carving through the metal until she reached the power unit. A jerk back and the glowing blue ball fell to the ground, powering down the synthetic.
“Next?” There were always more.
Lasers struck her in the shoulder and midriff. Dire situation, no laughing, Jasmine reminded herself. When that didn’t elicit a reaction, the machine reached down with its secondary arms, gripping her by the shoulders. It attempted to pull her into the air. Jasmine assumed she currently outweighed the machine. As the sentinel’s body groaned from the effort, she plowed her hand into its chest. As she tore at the metal, blue light flooded her face.
Whatever artificial intelligence powered the robot calculated she was stronger than the average human. It attempted to shove away. Jasmine held the metal of its chest cavity, refusing to let it flee. The panic in its actions made her wonder how close the thing was to sentience.
She herself had no sympathy as she crushed its battery.
Outside, an explosion reminded her the Paladins weren’t nearly as invulnerable. Approaching the suspended command center, she inspected the girders at the ceiling. It hung far from any beams she might climb. From the closest spot, she estimated she'd to jump almost thirty feet. Falling was more her forte.
She grabbed a small metal pad from her belt. Inside it held nearly a hundred feet of tether, but the synthetic spider weave would never be capable of lifting her weight.
Hundreds of mechanical arms hissed with sparks, welding killing machines. She searched for any sign of guards. The magnetic grappling hook was another piece of advanced technology created by the same company she was attempting to destroy. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She hoped Genesis Division took note when they watched the playback of her victory.
A muscle-powered pitch sent the disc soaring to the command center. Jasmine tightened her muscles, curling into a ball. With a deep breath, she exhaled. The ripple never hurt as much in reverse. Tension exited her body. Beneath the skin, muscles reduced, returning her to something resembling human. Every time her abilities switched off, a moment of sadness filled her chest. Close to human, but never quite.
The string jerked tight and lifted her up. Bullets zipped past as she was pulled closer to the floating box. Spinning about, she watched one of the giant mechs stomp from the assembly line. On top of the giant killing machine, three of the warehouse sentinels waited, their extra appendages reaching upward in preparation for their prey.
“I fucking hate machines.”
The tether continued winding. Now she was nearly high enough to see eye to eye with the twenty-foot-tall mech. She planted her feet against the giant egg-shaped torso and kicked off. As she swung out wide, the smaller synthetics lunged. The talons of one machine caught her leg, tearing into her calf. Jasmine screamed, kicking the machine with her free leg. The sentinel fell to the floor with a crash.
Nearly out of reach of the last machine, she kicked furiously, struggling to keep her legs up high. With her feet clear of the machine, she inspected her blood-soaked calf. Beyond, the synthetic raised its lower forearms, small rifle-style guns springing to the ready.
Each shot pelting her torso should have killed her, tearing through her soft, supple flesh. When her skin mutated, bullets felt like a distant dinging, now each bullet sent a shiver of pain through her body. The body armor kept the bullets from penetrating, but it did little to absorb the impact. Jasmine didn’t worry about being killed; she worried about going unconscious. A Marine down and out on the battlefield had no chance of completing the mission.