“Not much, just working on my math homework,” Quinn answered, gesturing to his open math book and a small stack of worksheets.
“Yuck. I don’t look forward to doing those later.”
Quinn chuckled. “It sucks.” Then, his brain turned to romantic mush and became lost in unspoken affection for Keegan. Don’t be lame! Say something! Anything!
“Do you always longboard to school?” Quinn blurted out, knowing the answer was no.
Keegan smiled and shook his head. “Not when it’s cold or raining, but if the weather’s nice, then definitely, yeah. How do you get to school?”
Quinn blushed. “Um, one of my dads usually brings me to school in the morning.”
Keegan smiled again.
Man, that smile slays me every time I see it…
“That must be so cool, having two dads, I mean, you know, being gay and all, they must have accepted you without a second thought.”
Quinn’s faced dropped in surprise. “What?”
It was Keegan’s turn to look awkward. “Oh, wow, I’m so sorry. I just assumed…I didn’t mean to…wow, I’m an idiot.” His eyes shifted with uncertainty.
Quinn sat back and shook his head, fighting his insecurities and swallowing nervously. “No, you’re not. You’re right about me.” He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans.
Keegan regarded him for a moment, then pulled a chair out and sat down. He spoke in a low voice. “Quinn, are you not out yet?”
Anxiety took over and Quinn vigorously shook his head. “No, except to my three closest friends.”
“Oh man, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…”
“I need to, though. Come out, that is,” Quinn mumbled.
“What’s stopping you?”
Quinn shrugged. “I dunno. I think my dads will be cool, but I think people will judge us because they’re gay and so am I. I’m adopted so…it feels awkward to me.”
Keegan nodded. “I wish I could convince you that it won’t be awkward in your family, but it’s not something you can be told.”
Quinn managed a small smile. “Thanks. Then, there are jerks like Darien. He’s obnoxious. He’s always picking on me no matter what I do.”
“Jerks like him smell fear. He doesn’t pick on me because I give it right back to him. Just remember, McAlester…you survived a lightning strike. That makes you a badass in my book, so forget about what Darien could do to you because you survived worse.”
Quinn laughed loudly and then clamped a hand over his mouth. He looked around the library, but no one paid attention to him.
“You should come out, Quinn. Take it from me, it’s a lot more freeing to be who you’re supposed to be.” Then, he stood and winked at him again. “I gotta run, but I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Cool. Bye,” Quinn answered, watching his crush meander through the tables to the library’s main doors. He sighed and looked down at his math problems. They didn’t seem so difficult now that Keegan had spoken with him, but he knew his crush was right; it was time for him to be honest with everyone.
“All right, spill it,” Ravone said, her arms folded across her chest. The red streak she had added to her brown hair weeks ago had faded so she added some neon pink extensions to accentuate it. It matched the pink Lady Gaga Joanne T-shirt she wore with a well-fitted black skirt and purple leggings.
Quinn pulled his attention out of his thoughts and up from his math assignment and looked into the curious eyes of Ravone and Loren. “Uh, what about?”
They both turned and looked behind them as Keegan walked out of the library. “You know what we mean. Did you ask him out yet?” Loren asked. Loren identified with both gender pronouns and today he wore her usual red converse sneakers with blue jeans and a white T-shirt with the words “Unicorns are Fabulous like me.”
“Ohmigosh, no!” Quinn’s eyes popped open with surprise as they sat down at his table, Ravone choosing the seat Keegan had just got up from.
“Well, get on that, but what we really want to know is what’s going on with you and Blake?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You two have been acting really strange ever since you came back from your camping trip.”
Loren pointed between her and Ravone. “We even think you guys skipped school together a few weeks back. You were both absent on the same day.”
He scratched his head. “Um, yeah…we had to, uh…get a checkup back in Rangeley. So, it’s nothing exciting to talk about.”
“Did they probe you?” Ravone asked, chuckling.
“What? No!” Quinn answered, laughing.
“Well, all right,” Loren responded. “But just remember, we’re watching you. And more importantly, we’re here for you, Quinn. We’re your closest friends and we want to see you happy. We’ll be here when it’s time to, you know, roll out the rainbow carpet.”
Quinn smiled. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
“Okay, let’s get this math homework done,” Ravone said. “Maybe it will go faster if we encourage one another.”
“You mean cheat?” Loren asked flatly.
“No, I meant what I said.”
Quinn smiled and brought his eyes back to his math worksheets. I learned something important today. If I don’t live a normal life, people are going to figure out something’s different about me. If they figure that out, it will put my family and friends in jeopardy, and I can’t risk being discovered.
❖
Blake
Blake sat on a bench on Peirce Island that overlooked the Piscataqua River. He felt weird sitting alone at dusk in this spot, far from passersby, but he knew he could handle any would-be troublemakers. Agent Victor Kraze refused to meet with Blake at any other location until he could finish vetting Blake’s interest in supporting the still-unnamed agency or organization he worked for—or was in charge of. Directly across from him, a navy destroyer made its final docking approach, pushed by the Moran tugboats to the shipyard.
Behind him, he heard a car pull up. He didn’t need to look to know it was Victor’s unmarked, black SUV. With his enhanced hearing, he heard the usual two other men—armed guards—step out of the car and establish a perimeter. Since they were close to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the New Castle Coast Guard Station, Victor felt it looked official to have an unmarked car there for the conversation. Most people, he believed, would be curious, but when they saw the two guards, they’d leave well enough alone.
“Good evening, Blake,” Victor said, coming around the bench and offering his right hand.
“Hey, what’s up?” Blake asked, shaking his hand.
Victor sat down and held out the cardboard drink tray in his left hand. “I took a guess you’d enjoy a hot chocolate.”
Blake winced at him. “You know I’m not a kid, right?”
Victor smiled. “Of course. But to be honest, they’re both hot chocolates. I can’t do caffeine after one o’clock because it makes me too jittery.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.” He took one of the hot chocolates from the tray and nodded.
“You’re welcome, Blake.” Victor took the other and set the tray on the bench next to him.
“So, how’s everything going for you? We’ve talked a lot about the agency I work for and…”
“Why doesn’t it exist?” Blake asked, interrupting the man.
“What do you mean?” Victor asked, sipping his hot chocolate.
“Quinn and I have been doing a lot of research on…” he paused, realizing he slipped up. Shit, I didn’t mean to share that…
“Research about what, exactly?” Victor asked without missing a beat.
“About everything you’re telling me. No matter how I search for it, nothing ever comes up that sounds remotely familiar. There are a few whack-job conspiracy theorists out there, but…”
“You should study those. They’re probably right to some degree.”
Blake eyed Victor for a moment before continuing. “They don’t come close to anything
you’re talking about. If you really belong to some kind of secret Jason Bourne group why do you hide out in Rangeley?”
Victor chuckled. “Technically, that’s just one of our locations. In fact, it’s our original facility. What does your research tell you about Rangeley?”
Blake shared what he knew about Wilhelm Reich and his fundamental work with orgone energy from Wikipedia.
“And?” Victor pressed.
“And it’s always a dead end, like it doesn’t exist anymore. Quinn and I think you’re part of something he either discovered and hid or someone else quietly discovered after he died.”
Victor nodded. “Quinn, huh?”
Blake waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told him about us. I understand why I need to keep secrets from him.”
“I knew you would be an excellent pupil.”
They each sipped their hot chocolate.
“None of it makes sense, though,” Blake said, staring at the churning river water again.
“Perhaps what we need is a mutual pact of trust between us, Blake.”
“What’s a pact?”
“A formal agreement between two parties, though I’m sure you’d be more than okay if I didn’t write up a contract.”
“I don’t know, contracts protect people,” Blake said dryly.
“Fine,” Victor said.
For the first time, Blake heard irritation in the man’s voice.
“I’ll tell you more about me and my people if you tell me how Quinn and your abilities are coming along.”
Blake’s head snapped to Victor. So, you do know about our powers…
They maintained eye contact for several long seconds before Blake asked, “Our what?”
“Your special abilities. The things you can do that other people can’t do.”
“You mean like…super powers?” Blake asked, surprised he uttered the phrase to Victor.
Victor’s eyebrows went up. “Those are your words, not mine.” Then, he smirked.
Blake contemplated whether the man knew more than he had let on. I can’t tell if he’s bluffing about expecting us to have super powers or if he actually knows we have super powers.
Blake sighed and chose his words carefully. “We’ve been working with our science teacher. He’s really into comics and understands how those things could work—if they were real, of course.”
“Why did you talk to this teacher instead of me?” Victor asked, his head tilting to the side in curiosity.
“We didn’t trust you and we needed help. Some unusual things may have happened in the past few weeks that defy normal scientific explanation.”
“I knew it,” Victor shouted, slapping his thigh and completely breaking character. He set his hot chocolate down and began pacing the small dirt path that followed the edge of the grassy knoll they were on. A woman with her dog ran past them on the trail.
When she was out of earshot, Victor stopped pacing and rounded on Blake. “You two shits drained a year’s worth of energy and left me with nothing. How do you think I was supposed to answer for that?”
“What are you talking about?” Blake shouted back, his rage brewing. “Answer to who?”
Victor lost it and screamed at Blake. “I saw the camera feed, Blake! I saw you play with the orgone detector in the hospital and I know you and your friend came back to Rangeley. Why would you come back if nothing happened to you the first time you wandered into the Orgonon Reactor Core?”
Reactor core? The words struck with shock and awe in Blake’s mind. “Tell me what happened to us!” Blake shouted back.
“I don’t know!” Victor yelled back. “You and Quinn should be toast; burned to a crisp or melted into an oozing puddle of organic matter after soaking in that much energy. How you’re alive is scientifically…impossible.” He swiped his hand across the air in front of his torso, then walked back to the edge of the path and turned around.
A moment later, he turned around, flustered, and put his hands on his hips. “You’re not different, you’re not special, you’re not unique, and worst of all, you haven’t trained for this. There’s no reason you guys should have been able to survive that dose of power. Your insides should have splattered all over the reactor core. You and Quinn should be nothing more than two unfortunate missing persons reports. I shouldn’t be down here groveling for…” Victor stopped, catching himself. “How you’re alive is scientifically…impossible,” he repeated.
“You’ve tried it before, haven’t you?”
“Tried what?” Victor snapped.
“You’ve tried dosing people before, but it hasn’t worked until now; until, Quinn and I made it succeed on accident. You don’t even know how or why.” I’ve got you now.
Victor grunted and shook his head. Then, he looked at Blake with anger in his eyes. Blake’s intuition and history with his father’s verbal abuse told him the man was about to pounce again. Victor’s behavior in these past few moments had become increasingly uncharacteristic for the usually even-tempered man.
“No, Victor, this is scientifically improbable.” He let power fill his eyes.
Victor’s rage-filled face instantly softened into pure surprise when he saw Blake’s eyes glowing with orange-colored power. His jaw dropped open in awe.
The two guards put their hands on their sidearms, but Victor raised his hand to stop them. “How?” he asked, cautiously approaching.
“I have no idea, Victor.”
“Keep meeting with your science teacher and learn as much as you can from him. We’ll be in touch.” Then, Victor walked past Blake, signaling for the guards to get back into the SUV. Blake shut his eyes off and watched the unmarked car drive back toward the mainland.
Sometimes you are so weird, Victor.
2-2 | Differing Ambitions
Quinn
QUINN AND BLAKE PEDALED THROUGH the empty school grounds and made their way to the back-baseball field. “You think he’s gonna show?” Blake asked.
“Yeah, he was pretty excited about seeing what we can do,” Quinn answered. It had taken considerable begging on their part, but they finally convinced Mr. St. Germain to meet them late at night to see some of their powers in action.
As they had done several times before, the boys hid their bikes behind the dugout. Before crossing the infield, they stopped to look and listen for other students; they heard nothing.
“Looks like the coast is clear; Mr. St. Germain isn’t here yet,” Quinn said.
“Yes, I am,” a man’s gravelly voice responded.
The boys shrieked in fright as they spun around and saw a figure clad in black. The person wore a black hoodie with a bright yellow Batman logo on the front. Mr. St. Germain clapped his hands with delight and laughed hysterically, pulling back the hoodie from his head. Then, he abruptly stopped laughing. “Holy crap, you guys just disappeared!”
“You scared the shit out of us!” Blake exclaimed.
Quinn looked over at Blake and didn’t see him.
“Yeah, sneaking up on people and scaring them is my super power…or guilty pleasure. My wife hates it. Speaking of whom, you’re lucky she’s at her mother’s place with the kids for the weekend. Trying to explain why I needed to be at the school at eleven o’clock on a Friday night would have been next to impossible. Now, would you mind becoming visible? I feel crazy talking to thin air.”
Quinn smiled and reappeared. A moment later, Blake did as well. “So yeah, invisibility is one of our powers. It tends to happen automatically when we’re surprised.”
“I see,” Mr. St. Germain answered. “Can you control it?”
“Most of the time, but apparently it can still be triggered without us doing it.”
“Well, that’s okay for invisibility, but I don’t need you inadvertently shattering more beakers or other equipment.”
Quinn laughed. “That power seems to be under control.”
“Good. Okay, let’s see what you got. Who goes first?”
�
��I will,” Blake answered. “Let’s do this on the infield. I don’t need to scorch any more grass.”
They walked to the infield and stood in the middle of the sandy area between first and second base. Though it was cool that night, Blake pulled off his sweatshirt and T-shirt.
“Uh, what are you doing?" Mr. St. Germain asked, his voice slightly uncomfortable.
“Don’t worry, I won’t take everything off,” Blake answered. He unfastened his jeans, kicked off his sneakers, and handed his clothes to Quinn, who went to set them on first base. He turned around but didn’t come back. Mr. St. Germain remained a little too close, but Quinn knew he’d back off soon enough.
Standing in his boxers, Blake let his hands fall to his side, palms open and facing forward. A moment later, his eyes starting glowing orange.
“That is so cool!” Mr. St. Germain exclaimed. “Does it always happen when you use your powers? What are you doing right now? What power are you trying to show me? Huh, it’s suddenly getting hot. Oh, you’re making the heat, aren’t you? Wow, dude, you put off some serious BTU’s.”
Quinn chuckled, watching Mr. St. Germain back away from Blake. Quinn stared at Blake. Though he had sensed Blake’s heat power before, he had never seen him focus on it like this. His body burned purple nearest his skin, then turned into a simmering orange flame that licked at the night air.
“I think you’ve hit the next level, buddy,” Quinn said. “Your body is doing this purple-orange fiery glow thing.”
The Guardians Omnibus Page 19
