The Ables

by Jeremy Scott

  “Because the pepperoni break wasn’t relaxing enough,” Bentley shouted after him hopelessly.

  “Forget him for a moment,” I advised. “What’s your point, Bentley? What are you saying, that the prophecy is real?”

  “I don’t know. I may never know,” he admitted. “I’m just saying we should take it seriously, if only because Finch does.”

  “So Elben is going to return this year, that’s the basic premise, and we should consider that a possibility?”

  “Actually the prophecy isn’t calling for ‘the one who can do all’ to do anything specific except manifest … realize his or her own powers.”

  I wrinkled my face, which had become a universal signal with Bentley that he should continue explaining things. So he did.

  “You know how I know Finch himself isn’t the reincarnation of Elben?”

  I did not and shook my head accordingly.

  “Because he’s old. He’s practically grandparent age.”

  I still didn’t understand. If Henry were still at the table, I’m sure he’d have the perfect barb to tell Bentley he was still being too vague.

  “Powers manifest between the ages of eleven and fifteen. We all know that, obviously. This person the prophecy is talking about? Their powers would manifest in the same age bracket, not later in life.”

  “You’re saying it’s going to be a kid?”

  “I’m saying if this prophecy stuff is true in the least, it has to be a kid.”

  “I still say we should be trying to figure out who this Finch guy really is.” It was Henry, beginning his sentence a few feet from the table, having already blown through his small stack of quarters on a game at which he was terrible.

  “I agree,” Bentley said, nodding. “Which is why I pulled all the yearbooks from the time he claims to have been a student at Freepoint, school records, birth records, and anything else I could get my hands on.”

  “And?” Chad inquired.

  “Nothing. No records whatsoever.”

  “How is that possible?” I was instantly dejected.

  “I think it’s safe to assume at this point that Finch is a pseudonym.”

  “A what?” Freddie interjected.

  “A fake name.”

  “Well, wonderful,” I said, sighing. “So basically square one, then, right?”

  “Not exactly,” Bentley countered. “We know he’s an absorber, right?”

  “Right,” came Henry’s reply, again partially concealed behind the chewing of a rather large bite of pizza.

  “Well, that’s a pretty rare power, actually. So I managed to dig up the names of all custodians with that power who ever lived or attended school in Freepoint in the last sixty years.” He produced a piece of paper from his binder. “It’s a pretty short list.” He flipped the paper so it would be facing us and proceeded to go down the list. “First, there’s Phillip’s grandfather, Thomas Sallinger. He’s deceased. Then, there’s Rodney Milner, from Goodspeed. In 1965, he died in a training incident. But he was only in Freepoint for six months during his father’s job transfer anyway.”

  Henry’s thoughts invaded my mind unexpectedly. I’m going to fall asleep if he doesn’t get to the point soon.

  Bentley continued, oblivious to Henry’s impatience. “Grady Ball was a teacher here during the 1980s but has the cleanest service record I’ve ever seen; he also died in the early 2000s in a car accident.”

  “Are all these guys dead?” I wondered aloud.

  “Actually, yes,” he replied. “At least, all the ones with any connection to Freepoint. There are two living in the world who are from the right generation. One in Russia and one in Brazil. Neither has ever been to Freepoint, much less attended here as a student.”

  “Well, what are we supposed to make of that?” James asked.

  “That either Finch is not the absorber he claims to be or his backstory about founding the Believers is a lie. Regardless, I think it’s safe to assume we can’t truly trust anything this man says.”

  “But we still have to take it seriously,” I said, echoing his earlier words.

  “Right,” he allowed cautiously.

  “Right. So in other words, square one,” I said for the second time this conversation.

  “I think we’ve actually learned a lot,” Bentley countered. “We know he’s not who he says he is and probably doesn’t have the ability he claims. We know he’s sincere in his stated desire to bring about and witness the return or reincarnation of “the one who can do all.” And we know that person, if they actually exist, is more our age than Finch’s. And, the name Finch itself is phony.” He paused, taking stock in the facts. “That’s not nothing,” he concluded.

  “Fair enough,” I allowed. “We’ve learned a few facts. But in terms of being better equipped to face him or defeat him somehow, we’re actually not any closer, right?” My frustration was starting to show, and I regretted not masking it better.

  “I’m saying I think the thing worth investigating maybe isn’t the prophecy anymore. Maybe it’s the man himself.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, by virtue of our pal James, we were once again standing inside the hidden basement of the rotunda. This time, there was no Finch, though I’ll admit to having been more than a little concerned about that possibility.

  “Okay. Now, he said he’d broken into the library that first night for some reason other than this book.”

  “But we can’t trust him to be telling the truth about even that,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, sure.” Bentley placed the book back on the stand in the center of the room.

  “What are you doing?” Henry asked. “You’re giving it back?”

  Bentley, momentarily confused, responded, “Oh, well … I sort of memorized it.”

  “Isn’t that thing written in a dead language?” I followed up.

  “Yes,” he boasted, “Claret, the original custodian language.” He paused, perhaps realizing how much of a nerd he sounded like. “I took a class last summer.”

  “You took a class on a dead language during the one time of year you’re not required to take classes?” Henry was in shock.

  I merely shook my head in a mixture of amusement and wonder.

  Bentley just continued his original thought. “Look around, everyone. It’s not a big room. We’re looking for anything you think might even remotely pertain to Finch or this prophecy, okay?”

  We spread out as best we could in the small room. There was a main round area under the rotunda, roughly fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and also a small side room that was part office space and part kitchen. Chad and Freddie started opening cabinets while Henry began pulling up the cushions on the chairs lining the rotunda wall. James and I were mostly left to watch and wait. Blind kids make terrible private detectives. Only slightly better than Donnie, who also stood in the center of the room helplessly.

  I was mostly monitoring what Henry was seeing since he was still sending James and me his images. He was striking out, finding nothing in the chair cushions but dust and a few pennies. He looked up at me briefly. I don’t know, man.

  “What do you got in the kitchen, Freddie?” I shouted hopefully.

  “I don’t think,” he answered, pausing briefly, “anything useful. Mostly just kitchen stuff, actually.” He puffed his inhaler. “Why would they need three muffin pans?”

  I sighed heavily. Henry stopped his search and looked around the room. As his gaze panned over the far wall of the rotunda and into the kitchenette, something caught my eye. “Wait, go back,” I said sharply.

  Henry was used to this kind of thing by now and merely reversed his gaze back over the wall. When he passed over the framed portrait, I stopped him. “Right there! Grab that picture, would you?”

  Henry merely cocked his head sideways, silently willing me to remember he was a crippled kid who couldn’t stand up out of his wheelchair. I got the message.

  “Freddie, can you come grab this picture for
Henry, please?” Henry enjoyed sarcasm and laying blame, but I was all about solutions. Freddie scampered over, nearly tripping on Bentley’s cane as he darted out of the side room. He jumped up onto the chair Finch had occupied during our last visit, grabbed the frame, and stepped back down.

  Henry grabbed it and tossed it to me. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to catch something thrown at you when you are seeing it from the perspective of the guy doing the throwing. It smacked me in the stomach, knocking out my wind for a moment and doubling me over.

  “Oh crap! Sorry, Phillip,” Henry blurted sincerely, but still too late.

  “Dang,” I wheezed. “Do try and remember that I am a blind person, okay?”

  “Oh, man. Sorry,” he replied.

  I reached down and picked up the framed photograph. “Besides, I can’t see a thing in this picture if your eyes aren’t looking at it.” I flipped it right back at him, half hoping it would ricochet off his forehead like the woman at the school board hearing, but he caught it fine. He then laid it in his lap, facing up, and looked down at the picture to allow me the view I needed.

  The photo gave me instant déjà vu as I remembered that first night I’d seen it. But I hadn’t paid close attention to it that night. “Someone in this photograph is Finch,” I said aloud.

  “Well,” Bentley cautioned, “That’s if you believe he was telling the truth.”

  “We’re going to play that game forever, aren’t we? And do you not think he was telling the truth?”

  “Actually, no: I do. I think he’s in this picture.”

  “Well, then, let’s identify everyone we can, and see who’s left,” I suggested.

  “That’s fine, Phillip. And we should do that.” Bentley was already a step ahead of me, as usual. “But if we assume Finch is a false identity and add in the fact that his present-day facial scarring makes it impossible to match him to anyone in this photo … we still might come up empty. I mean, if we had a picture of his current appearance … maybe I could write a program to do some photo altering to see if we could match him to any of these people. But his scar is just too dramatic. He could be any of these people.” He gestured at the photograph in frustration.

  “Maybe your dad knows some of your grandfather’s old friends,” Henry pondered. “I mean, if Finch was an absorber and was running in the same circles as your dad’s dad, also an absorber by the way, then … doesn’t it make sense they’d know each other?”

  “Bentley already basically proved that’s not possible, though,” I argued. “Right?”

  “There were no other absorbers in Thomas Sallinger’s social circles on record at that time,” Bentley concurred before offering a caveat, “on record. Again, it’s always possible someone was lying about their powers or is doing so currently.”

  “You think Finch isn’t actually an absorber?” Chad pondered. “After all you’ve seen him do?”

  “Well, to play devil’s advocate,” Bentley countered, taking on one of his favorite roles, “it’s entirely possible that Finch is merely a one-power custodian flanked by unseen associates—Believers, perhaps—doing the heavy lifting for him.”

  Henry had some questions about that theory. “How are they unseen, then?”

  “One of them has Chad’s invisibility power, and he keeps them all hidden.”

  “And so, the rest of the powers he demonstrates would be …” I said aloud, honestly just working through the theory.

  Bentley finished for me. “Controlled by others.”

  Everyone took a beat to consider that before Bentley added his usual qualifier. “It’s just a theory, a logical possibility that would, at least in part, explain the gaps in Finch’s story. I’m not saying it’s definitely happening.”

  “So, again, I feel compelled to ask,” I said reluctantly, “What concrete facts have we actually learned?”

  The collective silence served as all the answer I needed.

  “All right, let’s go home, everyone. We have a SuperSim to practice for tomorrow.”

  Everyone shuffled in toward the center of the room.

  “Henry, bring that picture, okay?” Bentley asked. “I want to examine it further.”

  “Sure thing,” Henry said, sliding the frame in the pouch on the back of his wheel-chair. “So, anyone want to hit Jack’s before we all head home?”

  “We were just there, man,” Chad exclaimed. He was the one among us that was the least used to Henry’s appetite. “Honestly!”

  “What? A guy’s gotta eat, right?” Henry smiled, slapping his hand on top of the pile.

  Ooph!

  We were gone, having once again unknowingly done precisely what had been expected of us.

  ***

  James dropped me off in the garage as usual, and I slipped into the main house expecting darkness and silence. Instead I smelled coffee, a telltale sign that Dad was still up. And it was probably more than a little late for me to be waltzing in casually.

  “Hey, son,” he said, not seeming remotely angry. The trajectory of his voice told me he was sitting at the kitchen table.

  “Um, hey,” I responded, not sure if I was in trouble or not, and therefore, not sure how to behave.

  “Kinda late, no?”

  It was definitely kind of late. “I guess we lost track of time.”

  Dad was usually either still at work or already in bed by the time I returned home from my too-late practice sessions with the guys. I’d grown accustomed to him not really monitoring my actions the last several weeks since Mom’s coma, and I guess I’d let things go too far.

  “You know your brother sat here at home watching TV for five hours this evening … alone.” The picture of my current situation began to clear up, and it wasn’t good.

  “I don’t know, Dad, he likes watching TV.” Some things sound wrong as soon as you hear yourself say them. “I mean … I didn’t realize how long I’d been gone, no,” I said quickly, hoping to head him off at the scolding pass. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “I’m not mad, Phillip,” he sighed, sounding sincere. “I’m really not. I’m more thrilled than you could know to see you making friends and exploring your abilities. I just … this thing with your Mom … I’m really worried about your brother, Phillip. He’s still young enough that …” he trailed off, though I could guess fairly accurately where he’d been headed with that thought.

  “I know, Dad. I’m sorry. I haven’t really been thinking about anyone but myself.” It was true, actually. I just wasn’t as sorry for it as I was pretending to be.

  “When your mom comes back, she’s going to need this place to run as normally and as smoothly as possible, you see?”

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “I need you to be there for your brother, even if it means you have to give up a few hours a night of practice time with your friends. He’s not dealing with all this stuff too well; you may not have noticed.”

  If only you knew, I thought to myself.

  “Your mother …” he began before trailing off. “This is exactly the kind of situation I would normally turn to her for … to find out what I’m supposed to do as a father.” It was a shocking display of honesty, every bit as touching as it was surprising. “I’m kind of lost without her, son,” he allowed. “And until I figure out what I’m supposed to be doing … I am sorry, but I have to ask you to grow up a few years for just a bit and help me.”

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t sure what else to say … or even if I should be saying anything right now.

  “I understand the SuperSims are important to you, but your family is more important. I’d rather have you be a good big brother these days than a good custodian, and that’s not taking anything away from being a good custodian, you know?” He cleared this throat. “I guess what I’m saying is that … I am not sure I know what I’m doing here, son.” His voice cracked ever so slightly. “And until I do, I need your help with Patrick, because he’s in a very fragile place, okay?”

  “Okay,�
�� I nodded.

  “Okay,” he repeated, as much for himself as for me. He took a long sip of his coffee. “So, what adventures did you have this evening? Anything exciting?”

  “Nope, just Bentley’s research. Thrilling stuff,” I said, hoping to cheer him up a bit.

  “No more sightings of this Finch, right?” He probably told me three times a week to let him know if I ever heard from Finch or saw him again. It was borderline paranoia, but I was equally concerned about it myself.

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. The less I hear about him the better. Besides, your grades should be your main focus, am I right?”

  That was below the belt since there was no denying my grades had started to slip. Dad was pulling the ultimate parental trump card.

  “Right. I got a B-minus on my pop quiz this week,” I offered meekly, hoping he wouldn’t remember that I’d already told him.

  “I remember.”

  Dang.

  “Were you studying tonight?”

  “Not really. I mean, a little bit. But mostly we were just talking and hanging out.”

  “And planning for the upcoming SuperSim, no doubt.” Like most parents, Dad’s default position when receiving information from his children was “skeptical.”

  But I decided the truth was a can of worms best left unopened on this night, so I lied. “Nope. Just pizza and video games tonight.”

  Dad shook his head as he spoke. “I hate thinking about how much money I’ve given that man.”

  “Jack? Oh, it’s worth it, Dad. It’s worth every penny, believe me.”

  Chapter 22: The Second SuperSim

  “I don’t think he’s going to stop, Phillip,” Henry yelled over the noise of the attack. “We’re going to have to take him out somehow!”

  Henry, Chad, and I were pinned down behind a dumpster in the supermarket parking lot. Thirty yards away, ducking between the cars, was one of the simulation’s bad guys—a particularly aggressive fake villain who was also a fireballer.

  We’d caught him breaking into the town’s grocery store on one of Bentley’s security cameras, and James had zipped us over to confront him before zipping right back to the other side of town to help Bentley and the rest of the gang.