by R H Nolan
“No.”
That one word wiped every hopeful expression off the other kids’ faces.
Max frowned up at the Qirinian. “What?”
Zryk let out a long string of fast clicks and tilted his head. “I apologize, Max. I cannot fulfill your friends’ request. I do not know these juveniles. The probability of abusing whatever abilities they may gain grows exponentially with every unknown variable. It is too great a risk.”
“Unknown variable?” Max repeated. He glanced at the other kids all staring at him, and felt like he’d just been punched in the stomach. “You didn’t know me, either! I’m just as likely to abuse my abilities as anyone else!”
“When you found this ship and activated the release of my stasis, Max, you were wounded and afraid. Despite this, you did not flee or resort to violence. You remained, and we had the opportunity to speak. According to the information I have collected about the human race, and what I have observed of them firsthand, your actions indicated superior morality and character. That you are, in essence, what humans call good.”
“They’re good, too!” Max shouted, gesturing toward the others with a sweep of his hand. “You watched them help me in that lab! And no one else is trying to run away! And they didn’t attack you! They trusted me when I said you’re a friend, so how are they any different than me?!”
“They may trust YOU, but they do not trust ME. This is understandable. In addition, I have not observed any of these humans under highly stressful conditions. I do not yet know their capabilities—either their capacity for offering aid, or for doing harm to others.”
“If you’re talking about harming those evolved Sandwalkers,” Herk said, “that was self-defense. They would have killed us.”
“I agree, but I do not base my decision on any of your actions in that laboratory.”
“Then what the hell is it based on?” Herk asked impatiently.
“It is based on who you are as a human, and what you want.”
“I want to help the Scavengers,” Ayla said.
The way she set her jaw in determination—all her fear and indecision seemingly gone now—reminded Max of the way she’d looked at him when she’d found him in the garden.
“I hate that there are people out in the Wastelands who have to fight every day just to survive,” she said. “And it’s only because the people inside the cities, like the one I grew up in, say it has to be that way. Max is already helping people with his powers. I want to do the same thing.”
Max’s instant reaction was that he wanted to cheer, but it felt out of place. He was the only Scavenger she’d ever met, and Max knew he wasn’t like most of the others. He never had been.
How would Ayla feel after meeting her first Bloodletter? Her first Chaotik?
What if, after just a few days out here seeing what it was really like in the Wastelands, Ayla changed her mind about the people she said she wanted to help?
What if she changed her mind about Max?
“You are capable of doing just as much without evolutionary abilities,” Zryk said to Ayla. “Your desire to do more for others may only run as deep as the actions you have already taken to achieve such ends. Tell me—what have you done with the resources available to you within the confines of your city?”
The tone of Zryk’s mechanized voice from the communication device was unchanged. Still, Max couldn’t help but think the Qirinian’s words were far more of an accusation than honest curiosity.
Ayla seemed to think the exact same thing. That same determination vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Her cheeks flushed a bright red before she dropped her gaze to the floor.
“You think everybody has a shot at making things right?” Herk snarled, his hands balled into fists. “You think we wanted this world the way it is? You and your Bug ships did this. You killed billions of humans and left the rest of us to a dead planet. The ones that didn’t die, the radiation is going to finish off. We could make real change with powers like Max’s. We could save so many more people from dying out there in the world you destroyed. You might as well just kill every human left if you won’t give us a way to defend ourselves!”
A few veins throbbed at Herk’s temple as he all but screamed at the Qirinian.
Zryk shifted his body to face Herk now. “Your argument comes from a place of fear and entitlement. You believe this incurred injury gives you the right to develop and control abilities such as those Max has received. An injury not delivered to you personally but to your ancestors. But I have not harmed you. I have done nothing to you. And every one of my own kind are dead as well. If the logic of your reasoning is sound, I could very well demand the same recompense from you.”
Though Max couldn’t pretend to claim that he knew Zryk well—that he trusted the Qirinian implicitly, or that he understood every bit of his character—he never expected the Bug to insult the kids Max had brought here for protection.
A burst of indignant anger flared in Max’s chest. Here they were, arguing about right and wrong and which species had done more harm to the other. That wasn’t the point—but until now, Max had thought they’d gotten past that.
“You keep talking about helping others or harming them,” Max said, leveling his gaze at Zryk. “About a capacity to ‘do good.’ But that’s not what you’re trying to do, Zryk. You didn’t give me these powers just to help me. You did it so I could get all the things you need for your ship. It was all just to benefit yourself.”
“You are correct, Max. But I handed you a weapon more powerful than anything your species has ever possessed. Before that, I had to be certain you would not use such a weapon against ME. I placed my life in your hands, and you have not proven my assessment of your character to be incorrect.” Another round of low clicks rose from Zryk, and he lifted his front hands to gesture toward the others. “But these other humans… I do not know whether I can trust them as I trusted you.”
Max stared at Zryk, feeling highly self-conscious now that they’d had this conversation in front of everyone else. He didn’t remember having to prove himself to the alien before receiving the powers that were literally changing his life—for him and his family. It didn’t make sense that Zryk seemed to expect so much more from Ayla, Herk, Lyra, and Trox, too.
He especially didn’t like the way that his suffering and desperation apparently made him worthier in the Qirinian’s eyes. Suffering and desperation were just about the only motivation Max had had since his dad died.
“That still doesn’t—”
A BOOM suddenly echoed through the stasis chamber. It sounded like someone banging on a metal wall with another piece of metal.
Everyone turned quickly toward the entrance to the chamber, and Zryk cocked his head in what looked like surprise as the noise repeated itself every couple of seconds.
“What was that?” Ayla asked frantically.
“It is not from my ship,” Zryk replied as he turned to his computer. After a few seconds of manipulating the beams of light on the console, the Qirinian froze. “Something has discovered the tunnel.”
“What’s all that noise, then?”
“The ship’s defenses protecting us as the objects try to penetrate the hull. Wait… someone is trying to contact us…”
The holographic display flared to life on the computer’s surface, flickered a little, then revealed a human face.
Well, half a human face. The other half was metal.
Governor Saris.
“I’ve just detected that my signal is being picked up, so I’m going to assume I’m speaking to my niece and her four little friends. How lucky for me that you didn’t die earlier,” he sneered. His voice was full of just as much malice as back in the laboratory, when he’d tried to murder every single one of them.
“How is he doing that?” Trox whispered.
“He is broadcasting an image over multiple frequencies,” Zryk said. “I am merely projecting it.”
“Can he see or hear us?”
“No, he is o
nly transmitting, not receiving.”
The hologram of Saris continued. “If the Bug doesn’t understand English, perhaps you can explain to it that my drones followed you and have discovered its starship.”
As though to confirm Saris’s statement, the booming intensified.
Saris smirked. “Didn’t you think your escape was just a little too easy? I’ll admit, you surprised me back in the laboratory… but once you did, I knew you would run back to wherever that Scavenger received his remarkable powers. And you didn’t disappoint me.”
Max’s face flushed with anger. Saris said the word ‘Scavenger’ like he was talking about Sandwalker excrement.
“As the Governor of Neo Angeles, I claim this ship. All the technology it harbors now belongs to me. I will be coming for it very soon with an army. If you resist, you will be destroyed.
“If you are listening, Ayla, I would like to thank you for leading my drones to such a valuable discovery… but the fact of the matter is, you betrayed humanity for a Bug. All your companions have. We cannot afford the perils of a single alien surviving even one day more, nor can we abide traitors to the human race. If you kill the creature for me and then immediately surrender, I shall let you live. That is as far as my generosity extends. Otherwise I shall kill all of you myself, one by one. That is not a threat; it is a promise.”
The governor severed the connection with Zryk’s system, and the hologram vanished.
The stasis chamber fell eerily silent. Only then did Max realize that the banging in the ship had stopped.
“What happened to all the noise?” he asked Zryk.
“The ship’s defenses have eliminated the drones. However, others may be coming.”
Max looked at Ayla, who still stared at the main computer even after the blue light of the holographic display had disappeared. Her face was pale and expressionless. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she didn’t even react.
“Well, Zryk,” Trox said, breaking the overwhelmingly tense silence, “looks like giving us powers is definitely in your own self-interest now, huh?”
Zryk clasped his front hands together and wrung them nervously. “I fear you are correct.”
24
While Zryk was certainly efficient in everything that happened next, the Qirinian didn’t seem overly worried. When Max asked him why, he answered, “We will certainly have to respond to Governor Saris’s threats, but he will most probably not be able to immediately pierce the defenses of my ship. His drones certainly were not able to.”
“Then why don’t we just stay in here for as long as possible?”
“Because his resources are unknown, and it is never good to underestimate the unknown.”
Zryk offered to repair Max’s chest plate for him while his friends went through the process of ‘evolving.’ Max was only too happy to remove the piece of armor and hand it over. If they’d been attacked now, he didn’t think it would have done much to protect him at 35% durability.
Then Max watched nervously as each of his new friends step into Zryk’s energy chamber, one by one, for their own concentrated dose of forced evolution.
He tried to warn them what it would feel like, but it seemed they each had a slightly different experience.
Herk went into the chamber first, and while he didn’t make a sound when the single window flared with brilliant white light, he stepped out again looking pale and a little sweaty.
Ayla screamed inside the energy chamber. When she emerged, Max thought he could see a difference in her—mostly in the way her bright blue eyes seemed to glow. Or maybe it was just his imagination.
Lyra stepped out panting and had to steady herself against the chamber’s doorway with a metal hand.
Trox screamed too, but compared to his heart-broken, enraged battle cries in the lab, the sound he made in Zryk’s energy chamber sounded a lot more like a scream of victory. The kid stepped back out into the room with wide eyes.
“That was something,” he muttered.
“I’m guessing we don’t all have the same abilities,” Max said to Zryk.
He was thinking of Saris’s enhanced Sandwalkers. They had varied in powers, though he’d only seen a few of them use their powers. Most of them had been too busy … eating.
“Correct,” Zryk replied. “I recommend establishing a base for each of your new powers before anything else.”
“This is so weird,” Ayla said, her eyes flicking back and forth. She appeared to be viewing her own stats in her augmented vision. “I’ve got something called Force Move…”
“Yes.” The Qirinian typed away at the computer for a moment, then turned around to face them. “I believe humans call this telekinesis.”
Ayla spun to face Zryk with wide eyes. “What?! Seriously?!”
“No way can that actually exist,” Herk added.
Zryk seemed puzzled. “I assure you, Ayla, I am quite serious. And I assure you, Herk, it actually does exist.”
Lyra looked at Herk but pointed at Max. “You know what he can do, and you’re going to argue something’s impossible?”
Herk looked over at Ayla. “So go ahead and show us.”
Ayla glanced down at her hands, then looked at Max. “How do I do it?”
“Just think about using it,” he replied. There wasn’t any better explanation than that.
Ayla’s eyes grew wide as she looked around the room. “On what?”
“Hold on,” Max said, and grabbed two apples from Zryk’s stockpile. Then he set them next to each other on the floor, each a few feet apart, and stepped back. “Pick one and think about moving it.”
Ayla raised one disbelieving eyebrow, but she turned her attention to the apples and took a deep breath.
The minute she extended a hand toward the fruit, Max saw a shimmering ripple in the air around her palm.
Then the far-right apple flew across the room and bounced off the chamber wall hard enough to spatter juice everywhere.
“Yup,” Trox said with wide, eager eyes. “Definitely telekinesis.”
Ayla stared at her hand. “Wow.”
“All right,” Herk said. “So what the heck is Generate?”
“Is that the power you see?” Max asked.
“Yeah. Generate what, though?”
“I think you just have to try it out,” Trox said.
Max looked at Trox carefully. The whole ‘getting superpowers’ thing seemed to have distracted Trox from thoughts of his dad. If Max’s loss of his own father was any indication, it would take Trox a long time to get over his grief, but at least he wasn’t thinking about it right now.
“Okay,” Herk said with a sigh. “Just think about using it. Okay, I’m thinking—”
In the next second, every inch of Herk’s body erupted with green, gaseous flames, like he’d been set ablaze with green fire.
“Holy CRAP,” Herk yelped as he looked down at his hands.
“Whoa…” Trox muttered as he and everyone else in the room took a step back.
“What does it feel like?” Lyra asked.
“It… kind of tickles…” Herk’s eyes moved quickly back and forth as he viewed the stats only he could see. “What is this?”
“Ayla, if you would, please direct one of the fruits as a projectile towards Herk.”
“You mean, throw an apple at him?”
“Using your powers, yes.”
Ayla looked over at Herk, who shrugged. “Just not in the face,” he said.
“Or the nuts,” Trox said mischievously.
“Definitely not the nuts,” Herk agreed.
Ayla focused on the second apple, and sent it flying across the room.
It slammed into Herk’s chest, where it exploded into a half dozen pieces and a spray of juice.
Herk didn’t even flinch.
“WHOA!” Trox yelled.
“That was a bit hard,” Lyra said reproachfully to Ayla.
“But I didn’t even feel it!” Herk replied with a grin. “So it’s li
ke a shield, I guess?”
“In theory,” Zryk replied. “Although at lower levels, it will only dampen so much impact.”
Herk frowned at the air. “There’s a bunch of weird symbols I can’t read.”
Zryk’s fingers danced over the lights of the computer console. “I have translated them into an English approximation.”
“It says ‘Dash.’ Like run?”
“Only one way to find out!” Trox said enthusiastically.
Herk concentrated, and suddenly a streak of green flames flared across the room. Max’s hair fluttered from a puff of air, and Herk was standing on the other side of the chamber in less than a second.
“Shield and speed… not bad,” he said as the green flames extinguished. Then he grinned at Trox. “Guess you’re not the fastest anymore.”
Trox just narrowed his eyes like, We’ll see.
“Can Herk do both at the same time?” Ayla asked Zryk. “For instance, could he slam into a guard and knock him out?”
“All indications point to this as correct.”
Herk looked over at Zryk. “Is it okay if I run into the wall to test it? It’s not going to hurt the ship, is it?”
The alien gestured at an empty expanse of wall between broken stasis pods. “By all means, test your powers. The ship will be fine.”
Herk looked over at the wall. Green flames flared along every inch of his body, then there was a blur of light—
WHAM!
Max didn’t even see Herk move until after he’d already slammed into the wall. The boy staggered backwards, the flames still dancing along his skin.
The impact site on the wall had an impression three inches thick.
“Herk, are you okay?!” Ayla cried out.
“I’m fine,” Herk said as he shook his head. “It was like somebody hit me with a tennis racket, that’s all.”
Max had no idea what a tennis racket was, but he didn’t want to betray his ignorance, so he stayed silent.
“Looks like you hit the wall with more than a tennis racket,” Trox said.
Herk saw the impact and grinned—then frowned as he turned back to Zryk. “I thought you said I wouldn’t hurt the ship!”