by Jeremy Scott
“Phillip, no!” Henry wailed, openly crying at the raw horror of what he was seeing.
“And this is for me!” One last time, I fired his body at the wall, battering the old man even further. I didn’t have much practice in beating a man into submission, but I reasoned he was very likely well past that point by now.
He hung there, powerless and possibly passed out, like a rag doll. Four hits. That’s all it took for a kid to take down the most powerful bad guy in the world—that’s how quickly fortunes change in the world of empowered individuals.
“Any last words?” I asked. I was on the edge of the cliff, about to jump. There is no doubt in my mind I was ready to kill this man—my own grandfather—had it not been for Henry.
I suddenly lost my sight. I could tell right away, though, that my power—my hold on the enemy and his men—was still intact. It’s almost like I could feel them … their location … my connection to them. I wasn’t sure how long that would last, though, especially if I actually needed to move them.
Phillip, Henry said with his thoughts, you have to stop. You have to stop this now. I can’t be a part of this.
Fine, then: go, I responded in kind. You don’t have to be a part of it.
Phillip … this isn’t you, buddy.
What do you know about me, man? Nothing, that’s what!
If you kill this man, they’re never going to let you be a hero, Phillip. You’ll be a villain for life … no going back. No more SuperSim, no more Freepoint, no more Ables. Forever.
Who cares? The Ables don’t matter, Henry, can’t you see that? They’re already going to make sure we don’t get to be heroes. The Ables were doomed from the start! The whole town hates us; they think we’re liars even when we tell the truth. We have no real powers to speak of. We have no mentor or leader. We’re just a bunch of kids with half-powers and no idea of what to do with them.
“Is that what you think?!” he was speaking now with his actual voice. “You really think that?!”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised to find him so surprised.
“You’re our leader, Phillip. You are!”
I wrinkled my face in confusion, so Henry just continued.
“You suggested we form a team for the SuperSim. You chose the name and even the story that would serve as the historical significance of that name. You fought for our rights to participate and found a place for us to practice. You thought of the plan to trick Chad. You thought of going to Mr. Charles—I mean, damn, Phillip! I know you’re blind, but can’t you see anything? Without you, there are no Ables … period!” He took a few deep breaths and then wrapped it up. “So you see … if you kill this man, you’ll be killing the Ables forever. I’m sorry Phillip, but this is about more than just what happened to your mother.”
I hadn’t turned to face him the entire lecture because I didn’t want him to get through to me. I wanted to dismiss his words and go back to killing the man who killed my mother. But he had gotten through to me.
“But, Henry,” I protested weakly.
He read my mind and answered before I could finish the sentence. “He does deserve to die. And you know what? You probably deserve to be the one to do it. But you know what else, Phillip? Being one of the good guys means that sometimes, you don’t get what you deserve. Things aren’t always going to go your way, and sometimes you have to give up what you want for the greater good.” Henry didn’t know how closely his words echoed those of my mother.
“But he killed my mother,” I said, as tears formed in the corners of my eyes.
“I know, Phillip. And while I did not know your mother for long, I do know this for a fact: she would never—NEVER—want you to seek revenge for her death in this way.”
I slumped to my knees letting go of my grip on the body of Thomas Sallinger, who fell fifteen feet to the ground and crumpled on the grass, clutching to life by a thread.
But I wouldn’t have let him go at all if I’d been paying much attention to my surroundings while Henry and I had been talking.
The stakes were so high. For me, this was about my mother and revenge and honor. For Finch and Mr. Charles, this was about history and good versus evil and settling old scores. There were so many huge storylines, I just simply forgot about one of the smaller ones: Chad Burke.
Chad had been standing near enough to me to remain outside Mr. Charles’ NPZ. I hadn’t given Chad another thought since learning Finch was actually my grandfather, and neither had anyone else. He managed to activate his powers and slip away unnoticed.
It was easy for him to sneak up behind Mr. Charles, but I still don’t know where he got the gun.
***
The four rescuers in the school basement were being dragged through the hallway, right past the prisoners’ area. The guards had caught up with Patrick when he mistook a classroom door for the door to the stairwell. The fat guard had a hold on Bentley and James, dragging them both by their arms toward the same closet.
“Why don’t we just throw them in there with the grown-ups?” the skinny one asked.
“Because, idiot, the boss said not to open that door for any reason at all, okay? Besides … as long as the big man’s NPZ is covering us, those kids are just as powerless in a closet as they would be anywhere, you dig?”
The skinny one smiled but obviously still did not understand.
Something silent occurred, and Bentley was the only one who noticed it. And while it meant good news for the near future, it was a terrible omen for the long-term success of the Ables’ mission.
“James,” Bentley said as he shuffled. “I feel smarter.”
***
A single gunshot rang out, and I whirled around in time to see Mr. Charles fall to the ground face-first with Chad standing behind him, a trickle of smoke twirling up into the air.
All of Thomas’s men fell to the ground, and I spun back around to see them all staring directly at me. And then I lost my sight.
Henry gulped audibly.
I merely whispered, “Oh boy.”
We were in trouble, and we knew it. Our powers were neutralized, and those of the enemies had returned. It was several dozen against two.
But nothing happened, at least not right away. I waited for someone to speak or simply blow me up with a laser or something. There was nothing.
“What’s going on?” I asked Henry in a hushed tone.
“Um … nothing, really. They’re all staring right at you, but none of them is moving.”
It was my turn to gulp.
“Wait a minute, Phillip,” Henry said softly. “One of them is walking.”
“Toward us?!” I asked in stark fear.
“No. Toward Finch—toward your grandpa.”
I concentrated and could hear footsteps. He was walking on grass, but he was the only person moving in the entire field. He was walking from my left to my right, not quickly, but not slowly either. Finally, the footsteps stopped.
“He’s bending down toward your grandfather,” Henry announced. “He’s putting his hand on his shoulder.” The narration stopped, and there was silence for several seconds.
“Oh God,” Henry gasped.
“What?” There was no response. “Henry, what’s happening?”
“He’s a healer,” he whispered. “He’s healing him!”
While it was obvious we didn’t stand a chance against the remaining henchmen, I at least assumed we were done dealing with Thomas Sallinger. But if there was a healer in the mix, then all bets were off. My heart sank. Healers were among the rarest of all superheroes, like blockers or those with the ability to manipulate memory on a large scale. He’d planned so carefully for all contingencies to this point, it made perfect sense that my grandfather would have had a healer in his crew. But it was still a surprise to me, one that threatened to send me into a tailspin. We’d thrown our best at the enemy—heck, I’d nearly broken every bone in his body myself—but it was all in vain.
Suddenly, I got my vision back, only it w
asn’t quite the same as it usually was. There was more clarity, and the colors were more vivid. “Henry? Are you doing that?”
“Doing what?” he snapped back.
“I’m doing that, Phillip,” Finch interjected. “I want you to see everything that’s about to happen. Because it’s time, son. It’s time for the end.”
***
“I said, ‘I think I feel smarter.’” Bentley repeated, with a distinctively slow delivery to emphasize each word.
James didn’t know what Bentley meant, so he just smiled a polite smile in response as they continued to be pulled down the hallway.
“James,” Bentley tried again, as the guards neared the closet. “All of the sudden, I feel smarter. Do you have any idea what that could mean?”
“That … you’re … getting smarter?” James asked. He couldn’t figure out why Bentley was making small talk at a time like this.
The skinny guard whipped out a key and unlocked the closet door. Time was running out.
“James … do you remember what my power is?”
The fat guard tossed both boys into the makeshift cell with Patrick and Freddie and started to close the door.
James answered Bentley excitedly. “Super-smarts,” he said, with a point of his finger for good measure. And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized what Bentley had been trying to tell him: the NPZ had gone down.
***
“I’ve pushed you pretty far, young man,” Thomas said, with a bit of his standard Finch charm now missing. He’d finally abandoned the Finch persona completely. “I’ve pushed you about as far as possible, and you’re still resisting your true nature.” He smiled. “I guess that stubborn streak runs in the family.”
I turned toward Henry, and the image I was receiving followed—I was somehow receiving a video feed of what my eyes would actually see if I weren’t blind. I wondered briefly which of the many men and women behind him was providing that little talent.
He continued, “There’s only one thing left to do, my boy. Only one way to find out if you’re truly made of … what I think you’re made of. And that’s to push you out of the nest completely to see if you really can fly. It’s time to fly, Phillip. It’s time to choose. Are you going to be the most powerful superhuman ever, or are you going to settle for being a blind telekinetic little imp?”
He started walking toward me slowly. “Which is it going to be?” He took another step. “Actually … the choice is much more final than that, I suppose,” he said as he stopped walking. “It’s either embrace your destiny as ‘the one who can do all’ or die.”
“You’re going to kill me if I don’t suddenly sprout a million different powers?”
He chuckled. “No, son. I’m not going to kill you.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled a small black box out of his pocket. “This … is going to kill you. Providing, of course, that you don’t dig down deep and find a way to stop it.”
He turned and waved at the school. “This building is pretty impressive, don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s state of the art—hell, a lot of things in Freepoint are, am I right?” He looked around with a fake sense of nostalgia. “I think it’s going to be sad to see it all decimated.”
I looked at Henry and then back at Granddad, a nervous pit growing in my stomach.
“Underneath that school, actually, just a few yards away from where your dad—my do-gooder son—and all the other prisoners are being held, is a special plan I saved as a last resort in case you wouldn’t listen to reason. Always plan for contingencies,” he added as a twisted bit of grandfatherly wisdom. “My contingency plan is a three-ton atomic bomb, Phillip, with enough power to wipe out the whole city and kill a few hundred thousand citizens around the state with radiation poisoning as well.”
The pit began to grow rapidly.
He kept going. “And when I push this button right here, you, Phillip, will be the only thing that can save them. And I’m willing to bet, when you’re faced with certain death and tragic loss for that many people, you’ll find something inside you that you didn’t know was there. You’re the unlikely hero after all, don’t you know? I should have made this my first plan instead of just trying to talk to you, because the prophecy basically calls for you to have your coming-out party by saving the day.”
“I don’t have these powers! Please,” I begged, “you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Shh, shh, shh,” he said, like a mother trying to calm down a screaming child. “We’re about to find out, Phillip.”
***
“Go! Now!” Bentley shouted.
James reached out his hands, corralling the wrists and fingers of everyone in the closet, until he was sure he was touching everyone.
Ooph!
They all disappeared and then reappeared together in the hallway.
“What the—“ The guards were startled, but my friends leaped into action too quickly for them. Patrick, showing his own remarkable jump in the use of his newfound powers, sped into the supply closet, grabbed a rolled-up garden hose, and wrapped it around the two guards dozens of times by circling them—all within two seconds time.
That left enough time for Freddie and James to push the two stumbling goons into the supply closet and lock it as Patrick finished securing the hose.
High fives were exchanged as the group took a moment to savor their spontaneous little victory. As reality set in, each of them slowly began to turn their heads until they were all looking at the detention room door and the trapped heroes inside. Dad stood at the front of the pack, his face contorted in shock at what he’d just witnessed.
“Oh yeah,” Bentley said sheepishly. “Who’s got the key?”
Chapter 31: The Unexpected Hero
Finch had been too cocky to consider any kind of prison break a possibility, and had therefore only activated his own NPZ over the field, ignoring the school completely. In a flash, a small army of Freepoint’s finest heroes, including my father, appeared behind me.
“What’s this?” Thomas asked no one in particular, somewhat startled by the sight. It was already too late, as there’d been one NPZ hero confined with my father in the makeshift prison—his partner from the ambush in Donnie’s room at the hospital—and he’d activated his ability the moment he arrived.
I lost the images my grandfather had been sending me but instantly regained the ones from Henry. I looked around to get a feel for things. Behind me I saw a large number of my city’s adults—we easily outnumbered the enemy two to one now. About twenty yards behind me, on my left, was my father. He was staring straight at the man who had tormented me for eight months.
“Dad?” He asked, well beyond confused.
The old villain looked up and locked eyes with Dad. “Hello, son.” There was a kindness and warmth to his voice, which vanished immediately on the next sentence. “You’ve raised an interfering little bastard here, you know that?” He gestured at me.
Dad smiled nervously with a combination of concern and pride.
“What are you … doing here … alive?” Dad was bewildered.
“Dad, Finch is Grandpa. He’s been the one behind it all along,” I said rather urgently, hoping to get him acclimated quickly to the situation. We didn’t have time to stop for every new arrival and retell the story to this point.
“Phillip,” Bentley blurted out, unable to control himself. “He’s got a bomb.”
“I know,” I said, pointing at the black box my grandfather held in his hand.
Quite cooperatively, he held it up in the air for all to see.
“Everybody freeze,” one of Dad’s protector buddies yelled. “Nobody moves an inch!”
“I’m willing to stay put,” Thomas said playfully, “but I don’t really think you’re going to play by those rules yourself if I do. And you’ve got all those super powers over there on your side, while I only have this little black box. So I think I’ll keep my thumb right here on the trigger for a whi
le and do damn well what I please.”
He turned and looked straight at Dad. “Son,” he said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to have our own reunion later, after your son saves the day. Right now, I have more pressing issues to deal with than a trip down memory lane. Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d hush up for a while and let your son and me talk, okay?”
Dad was stunned, still reeling from the new knowledge that his father was even alive. He looked at me, then at his own father … then back at me.
“Phillip,” said Thomas in a tone that was almost chipper, “what your friends discovered down there in that basement is part of a three-stage bomb. That means there will be three separate steps to the process. There is, of course, no added advantage to using multiple explosions—the end result will be the same level of devastation. But I wanted something visceral to trigger your powers.”
“I don’t—“
He cut me off. “The first stage is your basic dynamite, and that’ll just blow out the windows and doors. Sure, it’ll make a pretty gigantic thump in your chest—I mean, you’ll know it’s for real at that point.” He smiled the way someone does who is telling a favorite story they’ve told a million times. “The second explosion, well, that’s C4, and that’ll wipe out the school … probably send plenty of debris here into the field … might even hurt someone. That explosion is designed to really sock it to you—you in particular, Phillip. If, somehow, the first wave doesn’t kick in your instinctive God-given abilities, then we’ll have to wait for the second. And it will do the trick, I’m sure. You’ve been through a lot in the last year, but you’ve never been this close to a few dozen pounds of C4. That kind of explosion will make Navy SEALs soil themselves.”
And then he just stopped, almost as though he was waiting for something.
“And the final stage?” I finally said, remembering that this was all a carefully choreographed and scripted affair for my grandfather, almost like a play reenacting his grand vision for this moment.
“Well, if it comes to that, there’s no going back. That’s the nuclear option—literally.” He took a few steps toward me and was now only a few feet away. “Phillip, if those first two explosions don’t wake up the powers I know to be inside you … then I don’t want to live, and none of you deserve to … so we’ll all die. Together. But,” he chuckled, “I am not remotely worried about it. You are the one I’ve been searching for these last forty years, Phillip. I know it as strongly as I’ve ever known anything in my life.