by Matt Blake
I grabbed the sides of his head and with the last ounce of energy in my body, I teleported us back to New York.
We landed right on the rooftop of that Staten Island building. My vision was blurred, because Adam still had his grip around my neck. But in my blurred vision, I saw things that made me feel better about everything. I saw Stone fighting back. I saw Vortex and Ember too, all battling above me with Adam’s followers.
They’d believed in me. After all this time, they’d believed in me.
Maybe I wouldn’t make it, but they’d believed in me. That was the main thing.
I felt myself getting weaker as Adam’s grip got tighter. He leaned right down, moved close to my face.
“This is a new age now, Kyle. An age that doesn’t require you. Not anymore.”
“My powers,” I said. My voice was raspy. I could hardly speak. “Not hers. Not… not hers.”
I started to panic even more. Because I needed him to take my powers away if my plan was to work. I couldn’t have him give up on my abilities, killing me and keeping Cassie’s powers in the process. That wasn’t part of the plan.
Adam smiled, like he was enjoying the power he had over me.
Then, he said: “You know, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”
He let go of his grip around my neck.
He put a hand on my chest and started to suck my powers away.
As agonizing as it was for me, as painful as it was to face, Adam didn’t realize he’d just made the biggest mistake of his so-called reign.
50
I felt Adam ripping my powers from my body and I knew it was almost time.
I was on my back on the roof of that Staten Island building, but in truth I could’ve been anywhere. The clouds above were parting, and I could see a bright light burning through them. I wasn’t sure whether it was the sun, or just my powers being lifted above me, into Adam’s body.
In all truth, I was surprised he’d fallen so deeply into my trap.
The trap of bringing him back here.
The trap of offering my powers to him on a plate. An offer that I knew he would find extremely difficult to resist.
But even so, the hard part of what I had to do was far from done.
I just had to wait for the perfect moment.
I saw the explosions of the conflict above me and I wished things had never come to this. I saw what it represented. My kind versus humankind. And I was ashamed. Ashamed that things had got to a point where we seemed so disconnected from the people that they actually were willing to rise up against us.
We had work to do. I saw that now.
But in the back of my mind, as Adam pulled my powers away even harder, and the prospect of a powerless life dawned on me all over again, I saw the looks of fear I’d seen on the streets below. I saw that glimmer of hope in the eyes of people who had lost everything because of my recklessness and ULTRAkinds’ recklessness. I saw it, and I knew that we could fix it. I absolutely knew it.
I reached for Adam’s ankle, stretching out as slowly as I possibly could. I had to be ready for my moment. If I survived long enough for my moment.
I felt the powers being pulled even harder from me. I saw the fighting overhead. I saw the Resistance—what was left of it—trying to reach me and save me.
But I didn’t want them to save me.
Because if they saved me, I couldn’t complete my plan.
The pain of my powers was getting intense. I knew that if my focus slipped, even just for a split second, that I would lose my grip on the world. I smiled when I thought about what Damon had said to me on that Iceland trip. “Have you ever been to space?”
Well I had now.
And I had no intentions of visiting again.
Someone else, on the other hand…
Adam leaned right into my ear. I was weak now. Holding on to the last ounce of my powers. “Any last words?”
I laughed. I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t resist. I just burst out laughing hysterically, as the chaos and the destruction unfolded all around.
Adam frowned. For a split second, he actually looked concerned. “What? What’s so funny?”
I kept on laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he roared.
I felt the last bit of my powers—the last thing I was holding on to—being ripped away.
I felt Adam loosening his grip. Felt his body softening. Felt his guard dropping.
“Check your ankle,” I said.
He frowned even further. “What—”
“My powers might be strong, but I’ve learned to master them. I’ve worked hard on reeling them in. It’s kind of like riding a bike, or something. Sure, the bike might be powerful as hell. But if you don’t know how to ride it…”
Adam kept on looking down at his ankle. I knew right then that he could feel what was there, but couldn’t see it. “What’re you on about?”
“My powers,” I said. “They were the only thing keeping you rooted to the planet.”
“How—”
“And now you’ve taken them from me, well. There’s nothing I can do to stop the next part. Enjoy Jupiter, Adam. I hear it’s fiery.”
His eyes widened.
I saw his leg shake, as the invisible rope-like wormhole I’d wrapped around it—the wormhole that was connected intrinsically to my own abilities—finally gave way.
His hands covered in ice. He flashed in and out of invisibility. He lifted his arms to fire at me.
“Damn you—”
Then the rope-like wormhole dragged him from the surface of the earth and pulled him out of the sky.
One second, he was there.
The next, he was gone.
I leaned back against the earth. My eyes were sore. I wasn’t sure whether the fighting was still going on around me, just that I was weak. So weak.
I smiled as I pictured Adam floating through space toward certain death. Maybe he’d master my powers in time to save himself. I doubted it, though. Really doubted it.
I thought back to the moment I’d put the cogs of my own demise in motion. I’d looked down into Krakatoa, and I’d created a wormhole that led all the way into Jupiter, all the way into deep space. I’d turned that wormhole into a narrow, lengthy invisible rope with my abilities, and hooked it to the core of Jupiter as well as I could.
And then I tied myself to that wormhole.
I made sure the only thing that could stop me being sucked away into it were my own abilities. I’d made sure they were totally linked, immersing myself inside that wormhole, risking everything to make it as dangerous as it was.
I knew that eventually, I’d lose my grip, and that wormhole would pull me away toward Jupiter, if I didn’t defeat Adam.
And I knew the best way to defeat Adam was to give up my abilities to him. Because he’d wanted them so badly.
After creating the rope-like wormhole, I’d gone back to New York.
I’d given Adam a chance. A chance to give up. A chance to accept that he couldn’t go on with his false leadership.
But when he took Cassie’s abilities away, I knew there was no turning back then.
There was only one place Adam was going, and I had to make sure it happened.
He’d seen my powers and they’d been too much to resist.
He’d taken them from me.
And the second he’d taken them from me, I wasn’t pulling back against the suffocating mass of the invisible, rope-like wormhole anymore.
No one was. Because Adam didn’t know how to yet.
Adam had killed himself.
I tasted bitterness in my mouth at the thought of what I’d actually done. I’d killed Adam. He wasn’t one of our own, not really. But killing anyone was against our code.
Well, things had changed.
I’d taken responsibility.
And I’d given up my abilities in the process.
I took a deep breath of the cool breezy air and felt specks of rain hit my face.
I pictured my family. Dad. Cassie. Daniel. And Mom.
And I pictured Damon and Avi. I pictured us putting everything behind us, moving on.
Then I pictured Ellicia.
I smiled when I thought of Ellicia. I hoped that one day, now my powers were gone, we could get back to normal. Really get back to normal.
But for now, all I wanted was sleep.
Darkness surrounded me.
A warm comforting blanket covered me.
I heard a voice—my mother’s voice—telling me everything was going to be okay.
And then I slept.
51
I didn’t expect to open my eyes again.
When I opened them, I was still on that Staten Island rooftop. Only this time, I wasn’t surrounded by conflict.
I was surrounded by people, ULTRAs, everyone, all looking down at me with faces of concern. All of them checking I was okay.
“Is he alive?”
“I swear I saw him open his eyes then.”
“Goddammit,” Stone grumbled. “None of you ever trained in waking someone up before?”
He grabbed the sides of my body.
“Kyle! Are you with us? Are you—”
“Yes,” I gasped.
Everyone went totally silent then. All of the whispers, all of the speculation, all of it stopped.
I heard a collective sigh of relief, and I knew right then I’d won the people back.
“Kyle,” Ellicia said. She appeared at my side, almost out of nowhere. “Come on. Let’s get you to your feet. Let’s get you to a hospital or something.”
I struggled to my feet. I felt so weak. I wasn’t sure if this was just what it used to feel like, before I’d uncovered my powers. I wasn’t sure whether this was just normality, and I’d been living an abnormal life for so long.
Whatever it was, I was just relieved that I was alive.
And not only me.
Cassie, too.
She was sat at the edge of the rooftop. She looked weak, like she’d been fighting the same inner and outer struggles as I had.
But she was still here.
That was the main thing.
I half-smiled. Nodded.
She gazed back at me, and nodded back in turn.
When I looked around, smiling at Dad, Avi, and even Damon, I noticed the crowd of ULTRAs—newly turned ULTRAs—weren’t fighting anymore.
Some of them were totally pale. Some of them looked sick. Some of them were crying, like the reality of what they’d been doing, of the horrible ways they’d been fighting against the Resistance put in place to protect them, was finally dawning on them.
“I’m sorry,” one of them, a bald man in a Captain America T-shirt said. “I just—I just thought it was the right way. I just thought it was the right goddammed way.”
It was hard to feel any kind of pity for the man. After all, he’d been one of the people who’d fought against me and tried to put an end to the rest of the Resistance. He’d fallen for Adam’s lies, and for that, he was foolish.
But at the same time, I knew that the uprising against me and the Resistance wasn’t without legitimacy. People were worried. They were worried about a transition into a new world where they didn’t really elect their leaders, and where global policy was decided by a privileged few who had the strength to crush them if they disagreed. Adam had struck a populist nerve. He’d made the people really believe they could be just as powerful as their newly elected leaders.
Of course, he’d been doing it all for self-gain. He’d been doing it for his own personal gain. He wanted to rule, and he saw that it’d be easy to justify rule if he won the people over to his way of thinking by handing out powers.
But since he’d been gone—and I hoped he really, really was gone now, as grim as a thing as that was to accept—I knew the people were seeing the truth all over again.
And I knew for a fact that I had to see the truth, too.
If I wanted to be respected, I had to be responsible. I had to listen.
I had to change.
We all did.
“I realize I haven’t been the leader you want me to be,” I said. “And I’m sorry I haven’t heard you. I’m sorry for the people you might’ve lost. I’m sorry for… for making you feel like you were less than me and the Resistance, somehow. But that’s over now. Those times are gone. And we’re gonna have to work together if we want to move forward. It isn’t gonna be easy. Not now thousands more people around the globe have powers, which means the potential for thousands to go rogue. But I don’t want to think about the negatives. I’ve had enough of the negatives. If we work together, all of us… if we listen to each other, then we can make this work. I really believe that.”
Silence followed my words. Total silence in the streets. Total silence from the crowd around me.
I waited for the applause. For the rapturous acceptance that I was back, and that I now had everyone’s best interests at heart.
I didn’t get that applause.
There was, however, a muted acceptance. A general feeling that this was how things were going to be. That we were going to have to move forward if we didn’t want to destroy ourselves. Because we’d come so close, now. We’d come so close to self-destruction so many times. We couldn’t come that close again. Ever again.
I felt an arm behind my back when I looked down at the crowds below.
It was Dad.
He smiled at me, patted my back in that way he always did when he was proud.
Then Ellicia stepped to my other side. After her, Avi. Cassie. Stone. Ember. Vortex.
Then Damon.
I looked at Damon. I wasn’t sure how to feel about him. I wasn’t sure I’d totally forgiven him.
But then I remembered my own words and I knew I couldn’t afford to hold any hate towards him. Not anymore.
I nodded at him.
With a little hesitation, he nodded back.
Then, together, we looked out at the streets, out at the people below us, all of us—my ULTRAs and people, Adam’s followers, and all of us were together.
I looked up at the sky. If I squinted enough, I could see a speck. I smiled as I pictured Adam trying to use the powers he’d so desperately wanted to break free of his inevitable fate.
It wasn’t the old way of doing things. It wasn’t Orion’s way of defeating an enemy. It wasn’t code.
But it was a new world. And what was done had to be done.
I’d taken responsibility.
I’d paid the price for it.
Now, I lived with it.
My family by my side.
My friends by my side.
My girlfriend by my side.
My people by my side.
52
Adam saw the bright light of Jupiter surging toward him and he held his breath.
He didn’t have to hold his breath. He could breathe in space, of course. That’s what Kyle’s powers had given him the ability to do. Sure, he was rusty. The powers would take some time to master.
But he was going to master them.
He was going to survive this.
If he could just shake that tie from his torso…
He focused on his stomach. He focused on trying to release himself from that grip. Damn Glacies. Damn him for this. Just when he thought he’d seen his moment for ruling opening up right in front of him, he’d denied him that opportunity once again.
He thought he was one step ahead of him. So long, he’d acted like he was cleverer than him. Like he had the upper hand.
Well Adam was going to prove him wrong. He was going to show him exactly who had the upper hand.
Just had to get this tie from his body…
He looked back, his body covered in ice, and he saw Earth. It looked beautiful from this distance. So beautiful that it brought a tear to his eye. Even if he didn’t survive, at least he had that. He’d achieved so much. He’d come so far to be at this point. He didn’t want it to be over. Not yet. There was so much
more to see. So much more to achieve.
And then he spun around and saw the surface of Jupiter edging ever nearer.
The light was so bright that it burned away his vision in an instant. He could feel the planet’s gravitational pull dragging him towards it. He struggled more with that tie around his body, as his acceleration increased.
For a split second, just a split panicked second, he heard a voice in his head.
And the voice spoke words that terrified him.
“Was it all worth it?”
When he opened his eyes and saw the fires and molten lava of Jupiter just meters away, for the very first time, he wasn’t sure if it was.
He went to scream.
He didn’t get the chance.
The tie around his body finally came loose.
But there was nothing left of Adam to fight back.
53
I knew Damon and I were going to have to have this conversation at some stage.
The sun was out in full force in New York. It was roasting and stuffy. I was sweaty as hell, so I dreaded to think how Damon must be getting on, being bulkier than me.
We were in the shade of my dad’s mechanics now. The place I’d first trained myself when I discovered my abilities. It hadn’t changed much in the last year. Dad came here a lot more often, though, so it was much tidier, less dusty. There was that nice smell of oil about the place, which reminded me of childhood, riding in the back of his car. In those memories, it seemed like Cassie was there. But that was after her “death”. And the more I focused on those memories, the more I remembered other little details. Like the tear in Mom’s eye. And the empty look on Dad’s face.
The kind of subtleties you pretend not to notice, which are too hurtful to process.
The kind of memories you hope time buries and glosses up, replacing it with perfection.
Sitting opposite Damon was kind of like that right now.
He was slumped over. He’d lost weight, in his defense. He hadn’t looked me in the eye in a long time. Three days had passed since I’d cast Adam off the face of the earth and seen in the dawn of a new era. An era where ULTRAs were much more of the norm. Where The Resistance couldn’t just be a single body in itself, but had to stretch its wings to span the globe. Where the world had to take responsibility for itself.