by Matt Blake
But I wasn’t in the mood for fighting. I wasn’t in the mood for using any of my powers. Not now. Not ever again.
All I wanted was to jump from place to place around the world and keep as low a profile as possible.
After all, when I did anything else, I was dangerous.
I sipped back the slimy Coke. It tasted off, if it was possible for Coke to take off. It was like it’d been stuck in the back of this place for years. It wasn’t particularly cold, either, which confirmed my fears that it hadn’t been in a fridge.
But I didn’t care. Course I didn’t care.
I listened to the tropical music playing. All around the bar, mosquitos and flies flew about. Some of them head butted my sweaty body, so I just wafted them away. Above my head, a rotating fan did a terrible job of cooling the air.
The bartender kept on glaring over at me.
When we made eye contact, he tended to look away.
But this time, he stayed focused.
“I know who you are,” he said.
I tensed my fists and got ready for trouble.
He cleaned the inside of a glass with a towel. “Hey. Don’t you go trashing my bar. You are free to drink here. I’m just saying. I know who you are.”
He sounded calm when he spoke. And that made me wonder if actually he wasn’t so bad after all. That maybe he was indeed cool with me being here.
“So you’re a villain after all, hmm?”
“I guess if the media say that’s what I am, then that’s what I am.” I went to drink some more of the warm, syrup-like Coke.
“You know, the media did the same to us.”
“Hmm?”
“Colombia. The media make us look bad. They say we nothing but drug barons. They say there’s no order here. But that’s not true. We have problems, but so does everywhere. And we are getting stronger. We are getting better.”
I forced a smile, eager to get out of this place and away from this man’s harassment. “Well good for you.”
“We didn’t just flick a switch and things were okay, though. We earned it. We had to work hard, all of us, the whole country. And yes. We still have problems. But we’re better now. Because we knew that if we wanted respect, we had to earn it.”
The bartender walked away from me towards the back of the bar. He emerged with a half-pint glass, and poured it half full with beer. He pushed it across the bar, right in front of me.
I frowned. “What’s this?”
“Half of a half pint. Don’t want you drinking and flying. Not in my country.”
I sighed, tilted my head, and lifted the glass. “Thanks. I guess.”
He nodded, that constant stern look still etched across his face. Then he disappeared from the bar.
I went to drink the beer. The closer it got to my lips, the more uncertain I got about it. Was this who I wanted to be? Kyle Peters, former superhero, present occupation: drunk bum. Glacies, the alcoholic ULTRA. Was that the legacy I really wanted to pass down to those I wanted to inspire?
I thought about Cassie, Vortex, Stone, and Ember, wherever they were. I knew if they saw me like this, they’d be ashamed. Because no matter what, we were supposed to fight for what we believed in. Even if what we believed in meant handing ourselves over to the government.
My duty was to the people of Earth, though. And they’d spoken loudly. So loudly that my best friend had tried to take my powers away and destroyed my biological brother in the process.
But then that was no peaceful world. That wasn’t the idealistic vision of the future the protesting people wanted or deserved.
That was just the power-crazed fantasy of a megalomaniac.
Another false god telling the people how to serve him.
I put the beer down when the grainy CRT television from like, the nineteen thirties, caught my eye.
There was breaking news in New York. Attacks on ULTRAs. Only they weren’t random attacks. They were co-ordinated. By Adam.
I saw the next shot cut away from the footage near Central Park.
I recognized this place.
It was right outside my dad’s old mechanics. Right on Staten Island.
Adam’s followers were in the streets.
I felt dread cover me. I wanted to stay put. I didn’t want to cause any more death, any more destruction.
But then if Adam’s followers were in Staten Island and the rumors were that they were hunting down the original ULTRAs, then that meant they could question those closest to me.
That meant Avi, Ellicia, and Dad were in danger.
And it meant Cassie was in danger.
And maybe even Damon was in danger.
I remembered what the bartender had said. “We didn’t just flick a switch and things were okay, though. We earned it. We had to work hard, all of us, the whole country. And yes. We still have problems. But we’re better now. Because we knew that if we wanted respect, we had to earn it.”
And he was right. He was totally right.
I might have a negative image.
People might hate me.
But I wasn’t winning the haters back by sitting around here and getting drunk.
I went to teleport away from Colombia when the door to the bar opened.
The second the massive crowd walked in, I knew from the looks on their faces that they were ULTRAs.
Adam’s followers.
“Sorry, Glacies.”
I turned around.
The bartender stood behind the bar.
His hands were covered in throwing knives.
And he was getting ready to throw them.
44
Damon zipped his hoodie right up over his chin and pulled his hood over his eyes. He didn’t want anyone to see him. Not since he’d heard the news.
It was the middle of the afternoon, but the early sun was making way for thick, gray clouds. It made it feel like night in New Jersey. He’d been staying in New Jersey to keep a low profile. But now rumors were going around that Adam’s followers were hunting down the first wave of ULTRAs—Kyle’s lot—in full force.
And as safe as Damon felt for not being a part of that first wave, he still didn’t want to be a part of what Adam was doing.
Because now, he couldn’t shake the guilt he felt for everything he’d done, and for how everything had unfolded.
Rain lashed down on him as he walked through Wharton State Forest. He could smell that mixture of humid air and dampness, which was supposed to be a nice, relaxing scent, but he was far from relaxed right now. He felt weak. He hadn’t eaten in days.
All because of those changes that’d occurred inside his body.
All because of the powers Adam had given him.
He’d always thought it’d be pretty cool to have abilities. Especially since his best friend was the strongest damned ULTRA in the world. Hard not to feel a little jealous there.
But now he had powers, he saw the responsibility that came with them, as well as the potential for accidental destruction.
For the first time in a long time, he actually felt something like pity and sympathy for Kyle. Because as much destruction as he’d caused, as much recklessness he’d been a part of, Damon saw now that Kyle probably had only been acting in the best interests of the world. The destruction that came with it, unfortunate as it was, was just a side effect of powerful weapons like him.
And Kyle really was still just a kid like him.
He kept on walking further into the forest. He figured he’d just hide away in here as long as he could. Again, he was pretty sure he was safe. He wasn’t a First Wave, as they were now calling the ULTRAs who emerged around the same time as Kyle. He wasn’t ever a member of the Resistance, either. He’d just been Kyle’s friend—Kyle’s best friend.
But he’d torn all that apart.
Shit. He’d torn all that apart.
He stopped. Put his hands on his legs, gasping for air as the rain fell down even heavier on him.
He’d betrayed Kyle. Kyle had
trusted him all this time and he’d stabbed him in the back. He saw it for what it was, now. Sure, he’d just been looking out for other people. Sure, he told himself it was just the right thing for Kyle because it’d mean he wouldn’t get himself in any more trouble.
But it was still what it was. Betrayal. A stab in the back.
A stab that ended their amazing friendship, surely forever.
He tried to steady his breathing, but he was well in the grips of a panic attack. His heart thumped so heavily he thought it might burst out of his chest like that little creature in the first Alien movie. Every breath he took was forced and labored. He felt dizzy and sick. He just wanted to be away from all this. He just wanted to put it behind him.
But then he thought about Kyle. He thought about him out there, hunted by the world. He might not totally agree with Kyle’s methods, but Kyle was still a damn good guy. He was his best friend. Damon had the abilities to fight with him. Sure, he was pretty clumsy, but Kyle needed all the help he could get.
So he’d go to him. He’d find him, wherever he was. Or he’d find a way of reaching out to him. Damn, he’d do something.
He had to get to Kyle.
He had to apologize.
And he had to fight with him.
When he stood up, breathing back to normal and much more composed, he saw someone opposite him.
There were five people.
Four of them were on their knees.
One of them was standing.
The guy standing was familiar. He’d recognize those green eyes from a mile away. He felt his guts turn, and goose pimples spread across his arms. When he tried to step away, he noticed movement to his left, to his right, behind him, and he knew he was surrounded.
It wasn’t just Adam that terrified Damon.
It was the people crouching in front of him.
“Hello again,” Adam said. He walked in front of the three people crouched there. “Not gonna say hello to your friends? How rude.”
Damon looked at Ellicia’s terrified eyes.
He looked at the tears on Avi’s cheeks.
He looked at the defeat on Cassie’s face.
And he looked at the purple bruises on Kyle’s dad’s skin.
“No?” Adam said. He sighed. “Oh well. Good. We can get to the real reason I’m here.”
Damon tried to walk away, but someone grabbed him. He couldn’t move or use his powers.
Adam stepped over him. “I think you’ve served your purpose. And you served it really well.”
He put his hand on Damon’s head.
“But now it’s time for a new purpose. Let’s get started.”
45
“Just give it up, Kyle. It’s over. You’ve lost.”
I stood in the middle of the Colombian bar. The bartender who’d served me not long ago, given me life advice not long ago, now had a handful of knives—knives that he’d sprouted from his own palms. He was pointing them at me.
And all around me, a crowd of ULTRAs. Adam’s followers.
I looked around at the crowd, one by one. Some of them had electricity coming from their hands. Others had fire. Some had ice. Some of them didn’t have anything visible, which meant that they were the ones to really watch out for.
But they all looked tough. And they all looked angry.
And collectively, they might just be too much for me to fight through.
“So there’s two ways we play this,” the bartender said. “Either you surrender, and we take you back to Adam. Or you fight, and we… well. We take you back to Adam. Only much more broken and bruised.”
“Surely not a great idea working behind a bar with knives for hands?”
Knifey sniggered. For the first time, that totally serious expression had completely dropped. “You are a terrible joker, Kyle. But now we are going to have a lot of fun with you. A lot of laughs.”
Quicker than I could speak, Knifey fired a blast of knives at me.
I ducked. Then I stopped them in midair, snapping them with my telekinesis, making them fall to the floor around me.
I heard footsteps coming toward me. In the corner of my eye, someone with hammers for feet. Massive hammers.
She pulled back of those hammers and went to kick me.
I grabbed the hammer. I took its full weight, absorbing it, the shockwaves kicking through my body.
Then I twisted her leg around and threw her, hammer-first, back into the crowd of ULTRAs.
I felt something in my stomach, then. Not quite a stabbing, but the sense that something—or someone—was close.
I jumped aside.
Just in time.
Someone had been invisible right beneath me.
And then had a sharp iron rod in their hands.
I jolted to my feet. The crowd of ULTRAs was all firing at me now and running at me. I focused individually on each bolt of energy, water, electricity, fire, all coming toward me, and I soaked them up into mini-wormholes. I felt that wormhole getting bigger. I felt the charge getting stronger. I felt it get so strong that it was ready to release, ready to let go, ready to blow this place—
A sharp, hot pain stuck into my back.
I gasped. My grip on that wormhole dropped, and the power I’d been charging to defeat these remaining ULTRAs disappeared out of my reach.
I fell to my knees. I could taste blood.
When I looked at the front of my body, I saw something poking out of it, right at the diaphragm.
It was a knife.
I tried to steady my breathing and heal myself, gasping for air.
But then I felt ice smack me in the face.
Then I felt fists punching at me, hard.
And before I knew it, I was on my back, a mountain of Adam’s followers all crawling above me, like termites.
I felt the knife pushing further into me. I knew I needed to heal myself. But the more I focused on healing that, the more my guard dropped and the more open I was to being hurt in other ways.
I closed my eyes and thought about Ellicia. I thought about Dad. I thought about everyone I cared about back home, and what Adam might do to them if he found them.
I thought about Cassie.
I’d worked so hard to get her back.
I couldn’t risk losing her again.
I focused on that pain in my chest and I let out a cry.
When I cried, I felt energy surging out of my body faster than I’d ever felt. I heard swooshing noises, and the ground started to shake. The roof of the bar lifted away. The whole place was falling down.
And then I saw why.
As I continued screaming, I saw a wormhole right above the bar. A jet black wormhole bigger than any I’d created.
It was sucking everyone up into it.
I pushed even further, as agonizing as the wound in my chest was. I kept going as the ULTRAs struggled to hold on, until eventually there were only four left.
One of them was the bartender. Knifey.
He gripped onto the bar with his knife hands and for the first time since I’d met him, he actually looked worried.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
He frowned. “For what?”
“For making me realize.”
Then the bar snapped away and Knifey disappeared into the wormhole along with the rest of his cronies.
I watched them fly into it, out of sight.
Then I closed the wormhole.
The ground went still. In the place of cracking and splitting, silence.
But my breathing was still tough. Still totally ropey.
I sat up. Put my hands on the back of the knife. I held my breath and went to squeeze my eyes shut.
Before I did, I saw the news on that grainy television that’d somehow stayed standing, unlike the majority of the rest of the bar.
On the television, I saw Adam.
In front of him, Avi. Damon. Ellicia. Dad.
And Cassie.
“You have one hour, Kyle,” Adam said. There was a crowd of
people around him, all cheering. “One hour to turn yourself in. To hand yourself over. For the greater good.”
More cheering. Adam looked around, soaking up the applause.
Then he looked right back into the camera.
“If you don’t show in the next hour, if you don’t turn yourself over, then you know what happens.”
He walked over to the back of Avi and put a hand on his head.
“They die.”
The crowd roared.
The footage went totally grainy.
Then, it cut to static.
I stood there in the middle of the fallen Colombian bar.
The knife wasn’t in my back anymore.
My breathing was fine.
Without even thinking, I’d totally healed myself.
Everyone I loved was in danger.
Everyone I loved was going to die.
I couldn’t let that happen.
46
I looked down at Krakatoa and couldn’t believe how much had happened in the last year.
The remains of Krakatoa were pretty amazing to look at. I mean, this used to be a volcano. It used to be the site of one of the most devastating eruptions in human history. It was true evidence of the power nature had over man.
Now?
It was nothing more than a mass of broken rock and debris.
Rock and debris that, a year ago, I’d buried Nycto under.
At least I thought I’d buried him under.
I listened to the sea crashing against the rocks that used to make up Krakatoa. I could taste the saltwater on my lips, which were dry and cracked as it was. I was shaky, and I felt battered and bruised. More than anything, I just wanted to be over in New York, helping fight for Dad, Ellicia, Damon, Avi, and Cassie. I knew I’d been told I had an hour to save them, and twenty minutes had already passed.
But there was something else I needed to do.
I lifted my hands. My arms were still stiff from the fight I’d had in Colombia not long ago. I bit down on my chapped lip and focused on those rocks below. Slowly, I started to pull them apart.
If you think telekinesis is easy, you’re wrong. The objects you’re moving are still tough as hell, it’s just you have a slight advantage of not having to actually grab them with your physical hands.