Burden of Solace: Book 1 of the Starforce Saga

by Richard L. Wright

  For the first time since he placed them on her wrists, she considered removing the bracelets and seeing just how invulnerable he really was. Instead, she stormed over to one of the wall-mounted computers and accessed the document she had been reading.

  “The hell I am. Right here – Section 24b. ‘Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4), the term ‘advance reproductive planning’ means a consultation between the Committee and an exohuman, as described in paragraph (2), regarding procreation as guided by a coalition of stakeholders including representatives from federal, state and local entities, notwithstanding any--“

  “It’s legal gobbledy-gook. You can twist it to mean anything you want.”

  “Exactly!” She spun to face him, sure that she had made her point. Her feeling of triumph fell away as he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. How could he not understand what XAC was trying to do to them?

  “Cass, why would the committee care who’s having babies with who? It’s not like exo parents are any more likely to have exo children than Normals. You’re being paranoid.”

  “Ugghhh! You’re so pig-headed.”

  She wanted to storm off - to leave and get away from him - but there was nowhere to go. This place was too crammed with workshops and automated manufacturing machinery, the cramped living quarters only added as an afterthought. As a result, the two of them were constantly bumping into each other, turning sideways in narrow hallways to pass in awkward tension. She found herself actually missing the long hours spent alone in her apartment. She took another slug of wine, then threw the glass against a wall in disgust.

  “Shit doesn’t work anymore anyway,” she muttered in response to Nate’s raised eyebrow. Discovering that her healing power prevented her from getting drunk anymore had almost broken her, a final betrayal in her time of need.

  They got along better at night, when they flew unseen above the city. But those training flights were, of necessity, in the dark and she craved the sun on her face and the bustle of people around her. She worried about what was going on at the hospital. Had they already replaced her with some new surgical resident? Sometimes Cassie thought about all of the good she could do if she were there, healing injuries and saving lives. Then she imagined throngs of desperate people, all clamoring for her to help them. Unable to block out so many emotions, her imagined self was buried under their overwhelming pain and need.

  At least she didn't have to worry too much about GranDa. Their nocturnal visit had eased her mind and Nate promised to arrange another soon. In the meantime, this unrelenting confinement had her humming with nervous energy and no way to unleash it.

  By contrast, Nate was a portrait of tranquility - calm and focused as he analyzed Ballantine’s financial data for clues to the villain’s plan. “Why are you so calm?” she said. “Why aren’t you furious about all this?”

  “Because furious can get people killed. I didn’t have the luxury of wearing jewelry to cancel my strength, so I learned to control my anger.”

  His words were a cold slap. She turned away so he couldn’t see the color rise in her face. She knew he hadn’t meant it as criticism of her. She felt the underlying tone - it was a simple statement of fact. But it served as a reminder that whatever angst or frustration she felt about being an exo, he had suffered worse and for longer.

  Still, she couldn’t summon anything approaching Nate’s relaxed attitude in the face of the egregious government restrictions already in existence, much less these new ones. Her rights, her entire life, would be marginalized because she was an exohuman. Even with her destructive abilities dampened by the bracelets Nate had created for her, she still chafed at the idea that her life would be regulated and controlled by a committee of all-powerful bureaucrats.

  Controlled.

  The word sparked thoughts, not about herself but about Martin and how he had manipulated her, toying with her like a puppet. He was the ultimate control freak, and his ability to dominate others, even someone as physically powerful as Nate, made him dangerous beyond measure.

  Controlled.

  She spun back to face Nate. His head turned a little, possibly wary that she might throw something else at him.

  "It's XAC,” she said. “That's what Ballantine's after. What he really wants is to control all of the exos in the country. What better way to control the exos than to control the people that already control them? He’ll have the entire committee together at this summit of his and can use his power on them. Once he has XAC under his thumb he can use them to get face-time with every exohuman in the country, programming every one of them - every one of us - to be his personal slave army."

  Nate’s expression grew serious as he considered her theory.

  “What about the mentalists, like Leclair? Would they be immune to his control?”

  “Maybe. But if he can’t control them, then he’ll just dispose of them, like he tried to do with me. Except this time, he’ll have a legion of exo puppets to do his dirty work for him.”

  Nate’s mental wheels were turning. She saw it in his unfocused eyes. Cassie mentally braced to argue her case, but then his faraway look evaporated and he nodded in agreement. She reminded herself that he was, after all, a genius.

  “I need to go to Washington. The committee needs to know what he’s planning.”

  Cassie bit her lip. “Are you... Do you have to tell them about me?”

  “I don’t know how else to explain it to them,” he said, his eyes filled with pain. “Without your story, there’s no hard evidence that he’s a Dominator, much less a threat.”

  She could sense the conflict inside him, his emotions battling his logic. He wanted to help her, to keep her from being caught in this, but he felt he had no other choice.

  “Then don’t explain it. Give them the warning and leave out the details.”

  He looked away, unwilling to meet her eyes. She felt herself growing angry with him. This was important to her and that should count for something.

  "I can't take the chance,” he sighed. “They have to understand how dangerous Ballantine is."

  She walked around the desk, moving in front of him, forcing him to look at her.

  "Nate, I know I've asked a lot of you. And I appreciate all you've done for me. But this is a deal-breaker. I'm not willing to live by the government's rules. They don’t see us as people, only assets or liabilities. There's no place in their rules for someone who wants to be left alone. And that's me. I'm not a hero like you or Ironhorse. But I'm also not a monster like Ballantine. I'm me, not a number”

  She took a deep breath, biting at her lip as she fought for calm.

  “Please, don’t expose me. Don’t choose them over me. Please, just… don’t."

  She turned and left the room, not with a petulant stomp but quietly. It was either that or succumb to the screaming inside her.

  *

  She woke the next morning ill-rested. The argument with Nate had replayed itself in her thoughts until she was unsure what she had actually said and what she had tweaked in her internal reenactments.

  Had she been wrong? She had told Nate that it was all about XAC and their rules, but that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to rewind everything back to when she was normal. She had been given a tremendous opportunity, a chance to help thousands, millions of people. And she knew it was selfish of her to reject the responsibility, the sacrifice, but the thought of those masses of people in need, pressing and yearning… It overwhelmed her. There would be the ones like GranDa, the ones she couldn’t cure. Every disappointed cry would tear at her heart. And even if she could somehow heal all the wounds that came under her touch, what about the ones she couldn’t reach? Their unseen faces would haunt her, a constant reminder that no power, no ability, was enough to save the entire world. Could she carry that weight? Even Jesus had begged for the cup to pass him by.

  “Great, now I’m comparing myself to Jesus.”

  She pulled on some workout clothes, hoping that physical exertion would he
lp clear her head. Instead of cross-trainers, she opted for a pair of black boxing boots Nate had ordered as part of his shotgun-blast approach to provide for any and every thing she might possibly need. She didn’t usually go in for beating on a punching bag, but maybe today was different. She looked in the mirror and saw herself clad from neck to soles in black. When asked why everything he ordered was black, Nate had shrugged and said it was the default color on most things. Now she thought it a fitting color, as dark as her mood. The only spots of color were the bracelets that gleamed at her wrists.

  Breakfast was waiting for her on a covered plate when she entered the kitchen. The note next to it swallowed her appetite.

  I'm sorry. I'll do what I can. Should be back by tonight. - Nate

  She poured herself a coffee before going to check his workshop. As she suspected, his rocket boots were gone.

  Another broken trust, another betrayal.

  CHAPTER 23

  Nate had sent word that he was coming in for an urgent debriefing by the Select Exohuman Affairs Sub-Committee so they would be waiting when he arrived. Unlike most sessions of the sub-committee, this one would take place in a small conference room away from the public. After landing on the roof of the nondescript federal building, he was escorted inside by an armed member of XAC's Cerberus Division. These elite XAC-E troopers, tasked with guarding XAC itself, were a tight-lipped bunch and this woman was no exception. On one occasion, when he was still new to the system, he had tried to strike up a conversation with a Cerberus trooper. The soldier’s response had ended any further attempts:

  "Sir, I don't know you and I don't need to be your friend,” she had responded, never making eye contact. “Tomorrow I may be ordered to bring you down and lock you away forever. So please don't try to get on my good side. I don't have the luxury of having a good side where you people are concerned."

  You people.

  At the time, he'd chalked it up to that trooper having a bad day, but over time he'd come to understand. Every exo was a potential enemy to XAC. They trained their agents and soldiers in tactics designed to combat every super-powered person in the world, even the good guys. The same paranoia that created the Exohuman Control Act demanded they always hold themselves ready for the possibility that “people like him” could, at any minute, turn on the rest of humanity like mad dogs.

  In the past, Nate hadn't thought much about that. He was one of the good guys. He wasn't one of the ones these soldiers would ever have to worry about. Cassie had changed all that. She wasn't content to go along with what the law and the bureaucrats said she should do. She wanted no part of the life he had accepted as a given after Emerging. She wanted a normal life, and the freedom to live it as she pleased. If not for a random genetic mutation, no one would have questioned her right to do that. Now she was potentially in the crosshairs of these troopers because she dared to want a life free of their dehumanizing control. Because of her, Nate's thinking had been challenged.

  "This way, Gorman. They’re waiting."

  It was always a bit disconcerting when XAC personnel called him by his real name. That was probably by design. It was a reminder of the power they had over him. They’d taken away his name and now it belonged to them.

  The conference room Nate entered was one of the smallest on Capitol Hill, used exclusively for closed meetings. It was accessible only by a restricted service corridor and the placard on the door proclaimed it to be a janitorial supply closet. What went on it this room wasn’t meant for public scrutiny.

  “Guardian, I hope this ‘urgent information’ you have for us is worth disrupting our schedules. We’re busy people.”

  Not to put too fine of a point on it, but the chairman of the sub-committee was, as Cassie would put it, “a fucking asshole” and even Nate was hard-pressed to argue with that characterization. Len Jacobs had won his congressional seat by convincing the voters of North Carolina that he would single-handedly “get the nation’s exohumans under control.” That promise went hand-in-hand with a vigorous smear campaign that drew no distinction between the ones who safeguarded humanity and the handful of nefarious exos that those same Guardians were sometimes called on to battle. Good or bad, they had all been painted with the same brush, labelled as dangerous weapons that needed to be tightly controlled. Post-election, Jacobs had wasted no time getting on the committee, rapidly climbing up the ranks to plant his large, pasty ass in the Chair. He took every opportunity to lord over the exos that came under his authority. Dealing with him under the best of circumstances was a test of Nate’s restraint.

  “Yes, Senator. I believe the committee will find this is an urgent situation, which warrants immediate action.”

  “Hmph. That’s for us to decide.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Nate launched into the explanation he had been preparing since the previous evening. He covered the cases he and Walsh had connected, and most of the things Cassie had told him. He didn’t identify her, either by name or in any other manner, and he said nothing about her powers. He had to leave out Ballantine’s attempt to murder her, since they would be able to piece things together with Cassie’s public disappearance from Ballantine’s house. By the end, he felt he had done a creditable job of composing the tale without betraying her secret.

  “You’ve made a compelling case, 175,” Jacobs puffed imperiously. “If this man has the power you’ve described, then he needs to be stopped immediately. At the least, he’s an unregistered exohuman. No one is allowed to violate our laws without consequences. The obvious problem is how can he even be approached without putting our agents at risk of being controlled by these ‘domination’ abilities of his?”

  Nate nodded, breathing an inner sigh of relief they hadn’t questioned the anonymity of Cassie’s role in his story.

  “I believe I can accomplish that once I locate a man named Etienne Leclair. He’s a French national, a mentalist, currently visiting the US on a limited work visa. I believe he can help me with a protective mechanism against Ballantine’s power. Once I have that, I can subdue Ballantine and safely turn him over to XAC’s Enforcement agents.”

  The fat senator leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped. “We have Leclair in custody already. Our agents watch foreign exohumans very closely, even suspected ones. They don’t technically fall under our jurisdiction - something I plan to correct in the new legislation - but we can’t let them wander willy-nilly through our country unsupervised. Any one of them could be a spy or a prelude to some sort of extremist exohuman attack like the one on 9/11. No, we know where they are at all times. Once Detective Walsh’s bulletin went out, we had justification to detain and question Leclair.”

  This revelation came as a surprise to Nate. He knew XAC operated at a high level of paranoia but hadn’t realized they engaged in that sort of spying. A chill ran through Nate as he realized the committee had been paying a lot of attention to his small corner of the world. Protecting Cassie’s secret under that kind of scrutiny would be even harder than he’d calculated. Nate needed to tread very carefully here.

  Jacobs quietly conferred with the other committee members before continuing. “However, containment is not an acceptable resolution. The threat Martin Ballantine poses, of subverting our exohuman resources - not to mention the danger he poses to this committee and every part of our government - is too great. We are invoking Section 154.”

  Nate stopped breathing.

  Section 154 of the Exohuman Control Act was the most controversial part of the law. It authorized the termination of an exohuman threat, by any means necessary. No judge or jury was required, only a unanimous committee vote. The framers of the law had insisted that it would only be used as a last-resort, and even then, with much deliberation and debate. It had escaped constitutional challenge because it had never been officially used. Officially. Off the record, it had been hinted that s.154 had been invoked many times, and always under the seal of absolute secrecy. It was the monster lurking under every American exoh
uman’s bed.

  “With all respect, I don’t think that’s necessary. And I’m not comfortable turning him over to Enforcement knowing that he’ll be killed.”

  Jacobs’ condescending smile made Nate want to slap it into the next zip code.

  “You misunderstand, Guardian. We’re charging you with carrying out the directive. The only thing you’ll turn over to Enforcement is Ballantine’s body.”

  Nate was grateful for the concealment afforded by his helmet because he was sure horror showed on his face. “I... There has to be another way.”

  “These are your orders, Gorman. Is there going to be a problem?”

  Nate’s mind raced to find a way out. He couldn’t have imagined this scenario. Cassie’s voice played in his memory - “I don't think you're a killer. Am I wrong?”

  “No. I mean, yes. This is a major problem. I’m not a killer. I won’t do it. I refuse.”

  Jacobs’ face hardened. He leaned even farther forward, across the table, his piggish eyes boring holes into Nate.

  “That would be an unfortunate circumstance. Unfortunate indeed. It would be especially unfortunate for Cassidy Whelan.”

  His drawled words rumbled through Nate like distant thunder, harbinger of a coming storm. If spying on exohumans wasn’t limited to foreign nationals, then he wondered what else they knew. Was his Lair bugged? Had they listened to their conversations?

  “We’re nothing if not informed. After we became aware of her Emergence, we were content to let you lead Dr. Whelan around to the proper decision at her own pace. You’ve been a loyal asset and we had faith that you would do the right thing. But you see, this unreasonable defiance on your part changes all that.”

  Jacobs motioned to the Cerberus guard standing by the door. She stepped up to stand beside Nate.

  “Captain, are our Atlanta people in position?”

  The trooper nodded. “Yes sir, locked and loaded. As soon as you give the word, they’ll take Whelan into custody.”