The Empowered, page 76
We headed out before sunup, stopping for gas about an hour east of Seattle.
“Should get a better vehicle,” Keisha said, wincing as she stretched her legs and arms.
“Hey, I offered to take your place.”
She shrugged. “You’d have a harder time then me back there, with all those plant sounds that much closer.” She yawned. “I can deal. But the truck kinda stands out.”
“You’ve got a point about that,” Alex said. “But we can’t buy a replacement vehicle.”
Keisha’s lips pulled back in a shark grin. “Good, I want to steal something.”
“Stupid idea.”
“What about refurbishing an old van,” Harris said. “Like we did with the truck?”
“Good idea,” I said, and smirked at Keisha.
She smacked my arm. “Shut up.”
I glanced at Alex. “At least new tags won’t be a problem, will they?” He mock looked away, then laughed.
We found a deserted junkyard filled with old wrecks. There was a beat-up van. The windshield was cracked, but it had all four tires. Keisha, Harris and Alex worked away on it. I wandered between the huge piles of car hulks. A dandelion grew between two. I squatted down beside it and brushed the golden flower with my fingertips. It murmured in my head. I let myself into it, let the murmuring grow louder until it shouted.
My fingers burned. I jerked open my eyes. My fingers were beet red. The dandelion lay in a smoking pile.
I’d killed it with my power.
My hand hurt like a bitch.
I went back to the others and watched as they worked. My fucking hand itched like hell.
I winced. I rubbed at the skin, and then my other hand’s fingers started itching. God damn it. What the hell had I done to myself?
The van looked serviceable now. Alex turned and saw me trying not to yell. My hands hurt so bad.
“Harris, can you help her?”
Harris turned, saw me, and wasted no time coming over.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Not sure. I reached into a dandelion, changed it somehow.”
He reached out with trembling fingers. The itching died down. I closed my eyes. That had hurt so much. I opened my eyes as his fingertips brushed my skin.
“Be careful!” I warned him. “Don’t want you getting hell’s own rash.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “That’s one thing about possessing healing power. I can heal myself, too.”
“Good thing you can’t hurt people with it,” I said.
He looked thoughtfully at my skin, not answering.
“Your power is evolving,” he said after a moment.
“It is? How?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“She okay?” Keisha had come over.
“I believe she is,” Harris said.
I frowned “I’m right here. You can always ask me.”
“I wanted a good answer,” Keisha dead-panned.
I smacked her shoulder.
“Ow!” She yelped.
“How’s that answer for you?” I asked, grinning.
She rubbed her shoulder. “Very funny.” A moment later, she grinned. “When you least expect it, Mat, that’s when I’ll strike.”
Watching us, Alex chuckled while Harris just looked bewildered.
“Okay, enough horsing around,” I said.
We piled into the van, Alex behind the wheel, and drove off, out of the junkyard.
The glow from being playful with Keisha slipped away.
Harris said my power was evolving. What would that mean?
A white Hero Council surveillance blimp hung over Seattle as we drove down I-5 to Tacoma. It hung a thousand feet up, over the Sound. Far enough away that any Empowered on-board wouldn’t be able to get a case of the tingling from the four of us.
I hoped.
Alex kept to the speed limit.
“I can’t believe how crazy this is,” I muttered from the front seat. “We’re going to an old Scourge lair in the middle of a major city. And there’s a Hero Council blimp overhead.”
“There’s always one overhead in Seattle,” Keisha said.
“Doesn’t let me rest any easier.”
Alex drove past the Dome exit and took the next one. “Don’t want to be too obvious.”
I appreciated his optimism, but we were hosed if Support or the Hero Council knew we were here.
We drove down a wide boulevard, then past an endless line of stores, tire places, used car lots and such. It was like a giant version of 82nd Avenue, back home in Portland.
Alex parked the van in an alley two blocks from the red warehouse. Cranes crowded the Sound below the hill. Across the water, smokestacks spewed white fog.
The air smelled like rotten eggs. The paper mills always made Tacoma stink.
The buildings in this area were mostly boarded up.
“Better hope this warehouse of yours hasn’t been torn down or sold to somebody else,” Keisha whispered as we walked.
We turned a corner and there it was, just like the last time.
The door was locked, of course. Alex used one of his magic devices to enter the key code and we slipped inside the darkened warehouse. I found a light switch. Nothing. Power was off.
Alex flicked on a pocket flashlight. “Which way to the secret lair?” he whispered.
“I hope you remember where it is,” I told Harris.
“Yes.” He led us to a stairwell.
“Kind of obvious,” Keisha said.
“This is just to the basement level, where the building’s furnace is. And emergency generator.”
“Emergency generator? Why not turn it on then for Christ sakes?” Keisha grumbled.
“It runs on solar power, so it should come on. However, that might trip an alarm, or otherwise arouse suspicion,” Harris pointed out.
Keisha banged her foot against the stairwell wall. “Ow. Doesn’t make me any happier.”
We reached the basement. The place was a maze of rooms. There was one place where there was a wall, but no door. Harris stopped there. He ran his fingers over the space, found a hidden little catch, opened it, revealing a keypad.
“Just like that?” Keisha grumbled. “Seems pretty obvious.”
“You try finding that,” Harris snapped.
The rest of us stared at him.
“Sorry,” he said, trembling.
“It’s okay,” I replied. I squeezed his shoulder. “Keisha’s just jealous.”
She stuck her tongue out at me.
He entered the code and a door slid back, revealing an elevator. We stepped inside. There was one button on the wall panel. The air smelled stale and dry.
I coughed. Dusty.
Harris pressed the button.
Nothing.
“Well, if there’s no power, it’s not going to go, right?” Keisha was in a royally cranky mood.
The elevator lurched and started descending.
“Separate power source,” Harris said. “It recharges the batteries directly off the solar cells,” We went down, down, down.
After what felt like a mile, the elevator shuddered and stopped. The door opened. Beyond was a concrete-walled room with a single, ship-style hatch on the far side. Overhead lights flicked on.
Harris went to the hatch. There was a keypad there.
He tapped out a code on the pad.
He frowned. “Should have opened.”
He tried again. Still nothing. He tried a third time.
There was a zap sound and he wrenched his hand from the pad, electricity arcing from the pad to his fingers. He staggered and fell.
“Shit.” I ran to his side and turned him over. He clenched his jaw. The damn panel had electrocuted him.
“Fucking Scourge.” I helped him up.
He took a deep breath, then opened his eyes. “The key code must have been changed.”
“Fuck this,” Keisha said. She gestured at the door.
“Wait!” I yelled, but steam flashed from the hatch, and it turned bright red at the edges.
Too late. I took a step back. The air became all ozone stink. Keisha gestured again, her face twisted by a nasty grin. She made a slashing motion and the door shuddered.
“Dura-steel won’t stop me,” she snarled. A muscle on her forehead throbbed. She punched air with her fist and the hatch screamed as it bowed inward, then ripped away from the wall, tumbling inside with a boom.
She charged inside, jumping over the hatch. “Come on!”
I sprinted after her, Alex right behind me, Harris lagging behind.
We were inside a second concrete-walled chamber, with another hatch at the far end. Lights flicked on overhead. The chamber was empty.
Harris crept up next to me. “Be careful.”
“Why?” Keisha asked. “You know something we don’t?”
He shook his head. “Just cautious.”
“I knew an Empowered like you,” she said. “Always frightened of his own shadow.” She walked forward, arms out.
A faint whirring broke the silence. Ports opened on both flanking walls. Turrets appeared, swiveled, guns raising to face us.
Keisha gestured and the remains of the doors flashed to her. She swung her arms around. “Duck!” she yelled. We dropped to the floor.
The turrets opened fire, and rounds ricocheted off the walls.
More rounds pinged off a metal shield Keisha had created. Her face contorted by anger, she conjured iron nails from the ruins of the door and flung them at the turrets. Both stopped firing.
Her breath came out in ragged gasps.
Harris crept up to her, ran his hands over her. She stood up, wiped her face. “That’s better.”
“That’s stupid,” I snapped. “You acted like an idiot.”
“Oh, like you aren’t Miss Impulsive,” she snapped back.
I ground my teeth. It wasn’t the same thing.
My head started pounding. My vision blurred. The others winced. “Some kind of weapon,” Alex gasped.
Harris groaned. He waved his hands at us. The pain got better. He breathed hard and sweat ran down his face.
Alex pulled out earplugs, fancy baffled types, a set for each of us. “Quick, put these in,” he said. We did as he ordered.
An instant later an ear-shattering screech sounded, followed by another, and another, echoing off the concrete walls.
The sound was bad enough with the earplugs in. Without, I think our eardrums would have ruptured and we would have been knocked unconscious.
We slowly walked forward. More ports opened, these in the floor, all around us. Six rotating sprayer heads rose up.
“Cover your mouths!” I pulled up my shirt.
A moment later, the room began to sway, then began spinning. We tumbled to the floor, and I fell into darkness.
11
I groaned, and rolled over, right into a glass wall. I sat up and opened my eyes. We were in a concrete cell. The others lay stretched out on the floor, still unconscious. I turned around and faced a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. On the other side of the wall was a room filled with computer equipment. Monitors lined the opposite wall. One showed a raging forest fire, another a series of concrete bunkers with weird writing on them. A woman with black hair in a long braid, wearing a black support jumpsuit strode along the line of bunkers.
My eyes widened. I recognized her. Willow Chang. She’d helped train me after I’d been “recruited” into Support.
Another screen showed people in white jumpsuits battling Hero Council-types.
A man in gray medical-style scrubs watched the monitors, his back to me. My blood went ice cold. A fourth monitor showed our cell, and me, staring at his back like an idiot.
He turned. A surgical mask covered his face, and a scuba diver-like cap his head. He approached slowly, stopping behind a desk with a microphone.
“Mathilda Brandt.” His voice was quiet. It sounded vaguely familiar. It was like an English accent, but different somehow.
I swallowed. “That’s me. Look, we didn’t mean to break in.”
“You broke in by accident? Seems to me Keisha McMillian made a conscious choice to break in, regardless of consequences, and the rest of you followed.”
I nodded. “But we didn’t think anyone would be here.”
“Obviously not.” I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
“Who are you?” I asked.
His eyes watched me. I couldn’t tell their color from over here. He bent down and opened a drawer in a desk. He pulled out a headset mic, thumbed it on, and drew it over his head.
He walked up to the window, moving stiff and slow.
The others were still unconscious.
“You must have given them something extra after the knockout gas,” I said.
“Perceptive as always, Mathilda.”
I knew that voice. I just couldn’t remember from where.
“There’s a null projector mounted in the corner of the wall behind you.” He said it like he was ordering a coffee.
“Then why keep the others unconscious?”
“Simple. I never trusted Keisha. Plus, Harris being with you is a surprise. Frankly, you three should be dead.” He paused.
So, mystery man here knew Harris.
He pointed at Alex. “He’s a Support agent. I know him from the Scourge files.” He shook his head. “Do you know this place has an interrogation room, complete with a steel bed a suspect can be strapped to. By all rights, I should have your Support agent strapped to that right now.”
I wet my lips. “He’s a former Support agent.”
“So you claim. Are there really ever former Support agents? Here I find you with him. You were one person I trusted. I believed you’d died in that neutron bomb explosion at Emerald Green.”
Emerald Green. I’d led the Scourge’s cell at Emerald Green, with Keisha, the kid, and Obi.
Oh my god.
He pulled off his mask.
His face was a mass of bright red scar tissue. His eyes stared at me below hairless brows. He had no eye lashes.
“I’m what’s left of Simon White.”
Simon. “God, Simon. I’m sorry.”
“This is what a radiation survivor looks like,” he said.
“I thought you were dead.” I whispered. I’d been sure he’d died.
“The feeling is mutual,” he said. “You and Keisha were closer to the blast. Connor and I fought automated defenses while you two went off to burn out the heart of Emerald Green. The defenses killed Connor. But I managed to survive.”
My chest felt like it was filled with lead. I blinked away tears.
“I didn’t know you’d survived. I didn’t think we were going to. I didn’t.”
Damn. Damn everyone. Damn Ashula Singh and Nefarious and Winterfield and Zhukova and all the rest. Damn them.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
He ignored my apology. “The question is, why are you here, now?” he asked.
It came to me then, a little detail. Northern, that’s what he used to call his accent. It sounded different now, because his lips were badly scarred.
I forced myself to not look away. “We’re looking for a place to regroup.”
He titled his head. “What does it matter? The world is dying.”
“No, the world’s in chains, Simon,” I said. “There’s a big difference.”
Anger flashed across his face, and his eyes narrowed. “And you believe you are the savior who will fix it all?”
I clenched my fingers. “Not me. Us. The world’s been imprisoned.”
“So, what? The world’s always in the thrall of someone. If not the Hero Council and their Support lackeys, it would be the Scourge, or Omega Group, or the Ultimate. If not them, then a modern version of Hitler or Napoleon. Do you really think someone wouldn’t be ruler? Anarchy doesn’t work.”
He spat out the words.
“I’m not talking about fucking anarchy. There’s another way.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about, Mathilda.”
I started to argue, then shut my mouth. I didn’t, not really. “Okay, fair enough. But the fact is, the world is hurting.”
He nodded. “Worse than you know.”
“So, you just lurk in a hole in the ground and wait for it all to go to hell, is that it?”
He clenched his jaw. His eyes blazed.
Alex groaned behind me. He and the other two blinked and sat up.
Keisha’s eyes widened in horror. “Fuck. Simon. Shit, man, you look terrible.”
Simon made a strange, strangled sound. A moment later I realized it was laughter.
“True,” he said. He turned to Alex. “Alexander Sanchez, Support agent, formerly assigned to the Pacific Northwest district. Partnered with Lead Agent Thomas Winterfield.”
Thomas. That was Winterfield’s first name? He’d always just been Winterfield. Nothing else.
Alex nodded. He didn’t flinch at the sight of Simon’s ruined face.
Simon continued, suddenly sounding like he was reading a report. “Considered AWOL by Support.” He looked at me. “Mathilda Brandt. Along with her sister Ella, now Empowered, Alexander Sanchez, and Keisha McMillian, leading a group of rogue Empowered and others possessing lesser abilities. You escaped a sweep of a criminal base called Sanctuary, located in Great Persia.
“How do you know all this?” I demanded.
“Bugs in the system, Mathilda. The Scourge infiltrated into the computer networks employed by the Hero Council and Support.”
“They did? What about the Black-Light system.”
“Never heard of it,” Simon snapped.
“I hadn’t either. It’s part of the monitoring system for the Reclamation Zones, the Dark-Net and the Necklace.”
“Listen to yourself.” Simon coughed. “You sound like a Support agent. His face tightened. “But you were, weren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yes. Because I had to.” My hands were slick with sweat, and I kept rubbing them on my jeans.
He tapped his fingers together. “I wanted to kill you for the longest time.” The tapping stopped. “I could kill you and the others right now. Pump nerve gas into your cell. The nullifier would prevent Steel Witch from using her metal powers, and you from creating plants from the air.” He scowled. “I should do that. Save me worry.” Cold rage filled his voice.
