by bret Wellman
Adrian sat straighter in his seat looking slightly bemused. “Oh yea, and when did you start making the rules?”
“He is right.” Lillie cut in.
He looked at her in disgust before turning back to the front. “Not if they step out of line.”
I glanced over at Brianna, she looked to have cooled down a little. Adrian and Lillie on the other hand looked almost ready to go to blows.
After a while Adrian turned back to face us again. “You two better not step out of line either.”
Brianna wrapped her arm around my shoulder and smiled with the fakest smile she could muster. “William and I would never do anything to make you mad like that, would we William?”
“No. I mean yea.” It was getting very hard to think straight.
Adrian wasn’t amused. “I wouldn’t test me if I were you.” He warned then turned back to the front.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Brianna said.
Nobody talked as we drove through town. Adrian and Lillie wouldn’t even look at each other. I sat there trying to think of anything I could say to Brianna that would break the silence. My weak mind kept getting distracted by the singer screaming on the radio. Finally I just decided anything would do and said the first thing that came to my mind.
“Your hair looks great in a ponytail.” I said. I immediately regretted it, what an embarrassing thing to say.
“You say my hair looks great no matter what I do with it.” She said.
“That’s because it does.”
“What did you end up doing Friday after I didn’t show up?” I asked Brianna once Lillie and Adrian had started speaking again.
She stared at me for a moment then took a deep breath. “When you didn’t show up.” She said as she exhaled. “I decided that I didn’t want to go to school anymore. So I skipped and walked to town.”
“Because of me?”
“I just wasn’t feeling good.”
“I hope you feel better today.” I said.
“A little.” The dimples on her cheek sank as she smiled.
Adrian turned in his chair to look back at us. He looked less stern than earlier. “What room will you be taking?” He asked Brianna.
“I would prefer a room that was a little secluded.” She said, thinking it over. “But I have never been inside your house so I couldn’t say for sure.”
“You will be satisfied with a basement room.” Adrian said before facing forward again.
“I saw Blake in the parking lot before I ditched on Friday.” She said when Adrian was gone again.
“He didn’t do anything did he?” I said in alarm.
“When he saw me he looked down at his feet and scurried away.” There was mild humor in her voice.
“I think I was a little hard on him.”
“He deserved everything he got.”
We swayed in our seats as Lillie took a sharp turn.
“Can you believe he did that?” She continued.
I thought about it for a moment and then the words came out before I could stop myself “Kind of but in a way I think he was trying to fight for you.”
“He did it for the wrong reasons.”
“He did?” I asked.
“Yes.”
She glanced out her window for a moment then sighed and turned back.
“He did it because he thought I was something that belonged to him and you were trying to take me away. I was just a prize to him, something to show off to his friends.”
“And what would be the right reason?” I asked.
She looked down at her feet and started flushing again “Because you love someone.”
“That is a good reason.” I said. “But what if being with that other person made them happy?”
She shrugged then glanced up at me. “I don’t know.”
We listened to the radio for a little while before Brianna nudged me. When I glanced over she looked scared.
“What will happen if the physical user the Kingdom is sending finds out about us?”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder to comfort her. That small action made my heart race. “They won’t. We’re going to make sure of it.”
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” She said.
“I know.” I was trying to find the best words to comfort her. “I don’t either, but if anything does happen, I won’t let them touch you.”
She smiled letting herself forget her fear. “I’m supposed to be your body guard, remember?”
“Nope.” I corrected. “I think I like protecting you better.”
She crossed her arms in disapproval. “And who’s going to protect you?”
What was I doing? I pulled my arm from around her shoulder and interlocked my fingers in my lap.
“I guess I just have to watch out for the both of us.” I said then turned to look out my window. I focused on counting trees to try and clear my head. With Brianna so close it wasn’t helping very much.
“If anyone ever tries to come at us again like Blake did, let’s cut them down quick next time.”
“I like it.” I said without turning to look at her.
I realized how oblivious I was to my surroundings when I noticed we were pulling up to the house. I hadn’t even known we were pulling into the drive way. When I turned back Brianna was carefully watching me.
“You don’t think that is wrong do you?” She asked.
“No, if someone is trying to hurt us we have the right to use our full ability against them.”
She walked close to my side as we made our way from the suburban to my Aston Martin. “Good, so we both agree there will be no hesitation next time.”
I opened the passenger door and took one of her hands as I helped her in. I tried not to show what I was feeling as I closed her door and went around to the driver seat. It took every ounce of control I had to simply act normal.
Once inside the car I started the engine and turned down the driveway. It felt nice to finally be alone with her.
Chapter 10
“That was a pretty awkward car ride.” Brianna said as I pulled onto the main road. She stretched her arms over her head, the curves of her body sharpened in definition.
I started counting the yellow lines in the center lane. It was all I could do to keep the car on the road.
“I wasn’t expecting any less.” I said.
“What was it like being a mental user?” She turned her full, deep, blue eyed gaze on me. Memories of before I escaped started to cross my mind as I thought about her question. Things had changed so much, it felt like a different life.
“It was like.” I paused, trying to think of the best way to explain it. “When you know the answer to a question before anybody else because you have heard it before or it has to do with something you’ve already been taught.” I wasn’t sure if I was making sense. “It’s like that, except with everything. You look at something and it gets permanently stored in your brain just waiting to jump out at the right moment. And yet that is just one part of it, sometimes you just know things, like how a gun works just by hearing it being fired.”
She nodded. “How did they do it?”
“Do what?”
“How did they make you? It must be a dangerous process. I mean there are so many physical users and only three mental users. Did all the other mental users die?”
“You never knew?” I asked. She just shook her head. “Do you know any of it? Or how you were made even?”
She shrugged. “They never told us. Why would they? All they cared about was whether or not we were trained to fight.”
“Wow really? There is so much. Want me to start from the beginning?” I asked.
“Definitely.” She said, turning in her seat.
I started thinking back, way back. What had I learned while sneaking around the government buildings? What were the important documents we had uncovered so long ago when we were kids? Like always, the memories didn’t come jumping back in vivid contrast like they should
have. No, instead they came crawling in a cloudy blur that was my new brain's processor.
“Drugs, that’s how everything happened. There was one in particular named Peleus that gave power to those who should never be near it.” I glanced over to make sure she was paying attention. “Peleus was created around the same time as the birth of the Kingdom. Back then it was a drug injected with a syringe. It fused with the brain causing a severe high. I wish I could remember more on what the drugs did to people, but my memory isn’t what it used to be. I do remember something about the effects lasting for days and when it was over there was a fifty percent chance the person using it would die.”
“But what does that have to do with you?” She asked.
“Hold on a second, you just jumped like three hundred years. Anyway, a lot of people were paid off and others were threatened. The drug was legalized and president Mead's ancestors were the only ones allowed to sell it. They soon were wealthier than anybody had ever been in the history of time. They literally paid off the United States debt in exchange for power and very few even argued with the idea. At first they did good things, helped find ways for people to afford health insurance, gave tax breaks across the board. After a while they grew greedy and started to use their power to change the constitution. There was no stopping them once that happened, they had too much blind support from the people and crooked politicians. They had completely gotten rid of the debt crisis, that was all you had to say to anyone trying to object. It wasn’t long before the Meads had created a full-fledged dictatorship. That was when the current president’s great, great, grandfather, Marshal Mead, was put into power. He was a bright-eyed twenty something with a bad temper.”
“So they pretty much bought the Kingdom… people are starving in the streets and they have enough money to buy a whole country.” She said, shaking her head.
“Use of Peleus was eventually outlawed by Marshal Mead. But it wasn’t to protect the people like you may think. He did it to control them.”
“To control them?”
“Peleus was a very addictive drug. After one use the fifty percent that survived were hooked. They would do anything for it, and when it was outlawed there were thousands of people on the brink of suicide.”
Brianna shifted impatiently in her seat. “So they all died?”
“No, the president had been planning on turning their addiction into loyalty. During the rise of the Kingdom there was a resistance.” It was surprising how much I could remember from the documents I had read. “An underground organization hell bent on stopping the Kingdom and rebuilding the United States. They called themselves the Patriots, after the original rebels who had declared the United States freedom, or something like that.”
“What does that have to do with Peleus and us?” She asked. I could tell by the way she furrowed her eyebrows that she was confused.
“Well the Patriots were a thorn in Marshal Mead’s side. They started riots, performed assassinations, blew up buildings and Marshal couldn’t figure out how to stop them. The day Peleus was outlawed he went on national television and announced he would grant a lifetime supply of the drug to anyone and everyone who helped destroy the Patriots. By the end of the first week, Peleus junkies were breaking into houses and killing entire families on rumors that they might be Patriots.”
“They even killed children?” Brianna asked with a look of pain. She knew the Kingdom, she knew the answer was yes.
“The addiction to Peleus is strong, possibly worse than any other drug known to man. The people committing these crimes would not let anything stop them from claiming their prize, not even children.” My voice trailed off. These people were the ones that set the tone for what the Kingdom would become.
“That’s horrible.” Brianna said. “What happened after that?”
“Well.” I said trying to regain my focus on the story. “Because the drug had been legal, there had been unprecedented numbers of people hooked on it. Nobody could be trusted in those following days. By the end of the first month, Patriots started coming forward and selling out valuable information in hopes of getting their fix.” Brianna gasped, I kept going. “They were so delusional that they walked right into the face of the enemy and sold out their families. Marshal Mead never gave them any Peleus for coming forward, instead they were publicly executed.”
“And that was how the Patriots were destroyed?” she was leaning in my direction. Her perfume wafted toward me, it smelled like lilac.
“Marshal had everything he needed to take the Patriots down, yet he decided to let the chaos last a little longer. It wasn’t for another three months until he brought his army in and killed what little was left of the resistance.”
“I don’t understand?” Brianna complained. “How can so many people live under such a vicious rule? Why don’t they rebel?”
Why? I really didn’t know, I guessed there could only be one explanation. “Fear.”
“I wish the Kingdom never existed.” She muttered.
“Everyone does.” I said. At least I thought everyone did, how could anybody not?
“Ok, so the Patriots had been destroyed.” She stated. “Where do we fit in?”
I shrugged. She crossed her arms, her blue eyes questioning.
“You don’t know?” She asked.
“For years not much happened. Peleus was still illegal and through lack of anybody being able to get their hands on any, became forgotten. That is until Kohrin Mead, father of the current President Mead, started experimenting with chemicals to make stronger soldiers. Peleus was mixed with other chemicals like steroids to make drugs that could enhance a person’s strength, speed and thought processing. Extreme testing with these drugs was used to create the first Agents. It’s what turns their eyes blue like ours. Actually, Lillie had a theory that anyone who has ever used Peleus would probably have our eye color. Unfortunately we couldn’t find any documents to back it up.”
I caught Brianna peek at herself in one of the side-mirrors. Something in Peleus affected the brain enough to change the pigment of your eyes. Lillie had once said that if the Patriots would have killed everyone with blue eyes they might have survived. It was obvious that they had not.
“After Kohrin Mead died thirty years ago the current President Mead went around planting his seed in as many women as he could.”
“What?” Brianna snapped.
I turned my blinker on as we sat at a traffic light in town. “He was planning a new experiment. He wanted to create a powerful heir to his throne. He ordered every fetus he had created to be injected with drugs in hopes that one would come out more than human.”
Brianna’s mouth was open. “He ordered his own children to be experimented on?”
“Yes, they used all kinds of crazy concoctions and only one survived. The fetus injected with straight Peleus.”
“What happened to that child?”
“The effect of Peleus on a fetus was far different than on anyone else. Harlem Mead was born thirty years ago, a healthy baby.” I said. “As far as anyone could tell he was normal. Of course this frustrated President Mead because he wanted a super human.” I paused to look both ways before turning onto another road. “He debated putting Harlem to death and trying again for many years, until a few weeks after Harlem’s forth birthday when he started a fire using only his bare hands.”
“A fire user.” Brianna said before I could.
“The first of his kind. For the next few years Harlem was experimented on relentlessly, physiologically, physically, they even cut his skull open one time to get a look at his brain. To this day he’s messed up in the head from all the experiments done on him. It wasn’t until years later, around Harlem’s eighth birthday that President Mead decided to try for a super army and ordered the injection of Peleus into a large group of pregnant women’s unborn children. He didn’t even know if it would work or not, he only had one example to go off of, his son. Fortunately, just like Harlem, when those children were around age four
, their special talents emerged. The majority could wield either fire or ice but a small group could move things with their minds.”
“And that’s how they made the physical users.”
She considered for a while before saying “But still, what about the mental users?”
We had reached her trailer so I pulled up to the curb and put the car in park. She didn’t make a move to get out so I decided to continue on with the story. “Once a year over the next five years President Mead would hand select a large number of pregnant women and perform the same injection into their unborn children. That’s why we are all different ages.”
“But what about you?” She asked again.
“Feeling a little impatient are we?” I teased.
“Only a little.”
“Well.” I said “Out of all those children who started to show inhuman development three never did. Needless to say President Mead was intrigued by their lack of response to the treatment. He would have had them put down but their blue eyes were glowing much brighter than the others.”
“It was you.” Brianna interrupted in an outburst.
“I’m getting there.” I said, trying not to laugh “After further study it was found that the Peleus reacted different in our brain. It made us smart. At the age of four, in some ways we were already just as smart as a 4.0 college student.”
Brianna stayed close as we walked up to her trailer. I imagined it was because she didn’t want to get too far ahead and miss some of the story.
“Of course by the time I turned four, Adrian and Lillie had already been tested and President Mead knew what to look for.” I said as we were near the trailer. The front door was unlocked as Brianna turned the knob.
There was no sign of the others when we got inside of the small trailer. It had been stripped clean before we had gotten there. It couldn’t have been comfortable living in there. It looked like it was barely suitable for three people let alone five.
“They must have packed really quickly. Good, I was kind of worried we would bump into them. They are going to be in an extremely bad mood, it’s why I wanted to ride with you guys.” Brianna said.
She grabbed a garbage bag and started to fill it with clothes. There wasn’t really anything else to grab. She may have been free for over a year but she didn’t have much to show for it.