Kinetics

by Andrew Peed

  He took me out to the telescopes. There were six of them perfectly lined up in two rows of three. We walked into one of the domes and I checked out the telescope.

  It had about a ninety inch mirror that really needed to be cleaned but the rest of the telescope seemed to be in good condition.

  "What do you think?" Silence asked with his hands in his pockets.

  "I would like to see what these things can see." I wiped the filth off with my finger measuring about an eighth of an inch thick.

  "I wouldn't know where to start." he said.

  "Well if all these mirrors are this dirty we won't be able to, but if Fade kept her images on the computers then I'm sure we could find something."

  We went back into the control room and I started to boot up the computers. It was a slow process; the computers were older. They had an operating system that I had never seen before and had to assume was custom designed for the observatory.

  "She spent most of her time in front of this computer." he pointed to the computer with the biggest screen.

  I sat down in front of the station, it booted right up, not asking for any kind of password. The desktop was relatively empty but there was a single icon. I clicked on it opening a program that started with a splash screen. It said Eastcroft Observatory. The Eastcroft had a mark through it, and Fade's was written next to it.

  "She had a good sense of humor, didn't she?"

  "Yeah." he said face low, "Look Grace I didn't mean to upset you earlier out on the field."

  "What?"

  "When I grabbed you, I didn't mean to hurt you or anything."

  "Don't worry about that. I overreacted."

  "Thanks."

  I looked into his eyes. The same color eyes that we all had, so blue they were glowing.

  I cleared my throat and looked back to the computer screen. There were a few icons inside of the program, one marked targeting, one marked notes, and one marked imagery along with one marked settings. I clicked on the one marked imagery.

  Hard Drive Error: No Files Found

  "Well that sucks." I said.

  "Sorry about that, the computers have been sitting for a long time." He looked down at his watch. "Crap, we need to get going, the sun's going to be up soon, and we need to get you home."

  "Do you mind if I come up here and work on getting the telescopes working?"

  "I don't mind but you'll have to ask Sam if he is alright with it."

  "I thought it was ok if we were up here." I shut down the computers.

  "Well I may have fibbed a little. Sam prefers that we ask first."

  "Hmm, that is a good way to start off a relationship." I got up from the desk chair.

  "I figured it would be a good first date." He didn’t miss a beat.

  I stammered for a second, "I umm."

  "Don't worry about it I'm just joking, Grace" he grinned again.

  Chapter 13: Denver

  I slept that morning. I got the best sleep that I had for a very long time. When I woke I was in a great mood. I got out of bed, grabbed a stack of clean clothes, and hit the shower. I didn’t have to fight anyone, they were all out of the house already.

  I walked out of the bathroom putting my hair up when I almost collided with Silence in the kitchen doorway. I took a few steps back and let go of my hair.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I walked past him and searched for a clean bowl but there wasn't one to be found. Every dish in the house was stacked in the sink.

  “Vanish is out at the field with everybody today, all they really need for now is a glorified babysitter.” He joined me next to the sink and dried as I washed.

  “Ok, but why are you here?” I rubbed my stomach as it growled loudly.

  “Sam gave me that for you.” He nodded towards an envelope on the counter.

  I opened it up. It was stuffed full of cash, all of it hundreds.

  “How much is here.” My mouth hung half open; I had never seen that much money at one time before.

  “Ten.” He said.

  “For everyone?”

  “Nope, just for you. It's to get you started, you know get what you want. It’s a government re-establishment fund that Sam developed. He found some non appropriated money or something, I don’t know.”

  I took a breath and sighed in disbelief. I just looked at the money.

  “Come on I’ll take you into the city.” He smiled

  “What city?”

  “Denver, we usually go around there when we need to go shopping for anything that is not dime store stuff.”

  “What about the others?” I asked my mouth watering; I still had not eaten anything.

  “Sam is going to take them later.”

  “What if I want to go with them?”

  “You can if you want. I figured you'd want some space given your midnight stroll last night.” He seemed kind of hurt that I was considering not going with him.

  I thought for a moment. The money was burning in my hand, and I wanted some clothes from this decade. Things started to jump into my head, like a new laptop, I had never had a new laptop. Just government issued refurbished stuff.

  “Can we stop off and see the others before we leave?”

  “Sure, no problem.” he said, "Are you hungry?"

  "So very hungry!"

  We got into Silence’s car, it was a nice sports car, I had never seen anything like it before in my life, when he turned the key there was no noise. We left the house and headed for the field where the others were practicing.

  I looked over at Silence as he drove, eyes on the road, “Ok, I have to know, what is your real name?”

  “I don’t know.” An over menacing grin stretched across his face, “I wonder if I can trust you?”

  “Can you trust me?” I was outraged at his distrust. “I’m not the one who sneaks up on people in the middle of the night.”

  “Point taken.” He said but went no further.

  “Well?” I prodded.

  “My name is Ryder Alexander. I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted to continue to call me Silence.”

  “Ryder, huh, I like it. I would have pegged you for a Curtis.”

  “I don’t really like it.” He stopped before he turned into the dirt road that led to the field. When I got out I could see why. His car was so low that it wouldn’t have made it over the curb.

  I could see several explosions, energy blasts, and other things that were signs of the fight going on. We walked down the dirt road, and when the others saw us they stopped what they were doing, and met us at the tent.

  “Hey, Grace.” Ronnie waved.

  “Hey, guys.”

  Vanish looked like death, she had black bags under her eyes, and the look of stress on her face. She leaned on Hothead who didn’t seem to mind.

  “How do you feel today?” Rachel asked.

  “Fine.” I said, “But more importantly how do you feel Vanish?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I feel great now, I know I look like hell, but looks can be deceiving.” Vanish smiled.

  “I was going to take Grace into the city so that she can get do some shopping.” Silence smiled. It seemed like he was specifically trying to get a rise out of Ronnie.

  “Unless you guys would rather me stay here and hang out.” I said. I wanted to go into the city with Silence, I liked hanging out with him, but I didn’t want anyone to think that I was ditching them.

  “You go on ahead.” Kenny patted me on the shoulder, “Don't worry we’ll be just fine here. When you get better I’ll take you on myself.” He joked.

  “Yeah, I’ll fill you in later on what’s going on.” Ronnie slid Silence a dark look, but he didn't say anything.

  We said goodbye and left the practice field. The others didn’t take long to get back to blowing stuff up. I could only imagine how much fun it was and what I was missing.

  We got into Silence’s car and headed out of town. The small town was bustling with plenty of activity;
it reminded me of the last town that we had lived in, Greencrest. We actually passed a few cars as we drove through the downtown area.

  “What do you think so far?” Silence asked, “I mean I know you haven’t been here that long, but I’m sure that you have some kind of feel.”

  “I really like this place, everyone seems to be nice. I actually feel accepted here.” I kept my attention on the scenery outside of the car.

  A few miles out of town I saw a sign next to a road that wound into the woods back towards the opposite side of the mountain. It read Madison Lake House one mile, and the word Madison took me for a moment. I had heard it before or seen it somewhere. Silence was going on in the background, but I wasn’t listening.

  “So there is a lake too?”

  “Yeah, it belonged to the Madison family.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the small dirt road. It twisted and weaved through a wooded area.

  “The whole lake?” I turned back to the road in front of us.

  “Umm, yeah, they owned the mountain and the observatory as well but they had to sell because some of the funding was revoked for his company. I don’t know much about it.”

  I thought about the name Madison, but after a while I pushed it out of my head, and returned my attention to Silence. He talked about all the things that went on in Eastcroft and some of the things that The Last Line had done in the past.

  We took a short trip over an interstate and then he exited into the city. We arrived around midday, the sun was high, and my stomach was growling. Silence heard it finally.

  “I guess your stomach has decided where we go first. Where would you like to eat?”

  “I don’t know. Where is good?”

  “I know a little place.” He turned off the main road and got me lost with all of the turns on the back roads.

  We pulled into the parking lot of a small diner that had outdoor seating overlooking a manmade pond. Fountains sprayed in all directions from the center. We got out of the car and walked towards the diner but before we got to the door, he motioned for me to go sit down at one of the outdoor tables.

  “You don’t know what I want to eat.”

  “Trust me.” He walked away without giving me a chance to retaliate.

  I walked over to the table closes to the water. The sun came down just perfect not to get into my eyes, but to give a perfect back drop for the ducks swimming in the water. Silence returned shortly with a couple of baskets of food.

  “I used to come here all the time. I don’t get to come to the city much anymore.” He took a fry and dipped it into his ketchup.

  “Why don’t you come here anymore?” I knew as soon as the words were out what he was going to say.

  “I haven’t been back since Fade disappeared.” He tossed a fry into the water so that the ducks could fight over it.

  The basket of food contained a few Buffalo wings and some fries. I dipped one of the wings in ranch and took a bite, “not bad.”

  “Yeah the food is good but I came for the memories.” He played with a fry.

  He told me a few stories about when he was younger and I had the feeling that he was doing all of the talking, but I really didn’t have anything to talk about. I grew up in a handful of orphanages, end of story. Although that name was bugging me again. I seem to remember it from when I was younger.

  We went to a mall next, things were slow; the halls were empty and so were the shops. It was the middle of the day and most people our age were in class somewhere. We went to several shops. I purchased a wardrobe that was more my taste. We went to a computer store and I got the exact computer that I wanted.

  I asked Silence about a cell phone but he told me not to worry about it, Sam would give us all one. We found a store where I could get an IPod and that is where I decided to quit spending the money. I had already burnt through half of it.

  We put everything into the car and left Denver. The road to Eastcroft was empty. The sun was on its way down by the time we were back on the interstate.

  By the time we got back into town, everyone had long gone to bed. Ryder helped me carry everything up to my bedroom and I felt my face flash red when he got close as he went to leave. He must have noticed it because he smiled but he didn't say anything.

  I grabbed my new pajamas and went down to the bathroom. I took a shower and sat in the living room trying to watch TV. There wasn't anything that I wanted to watch, so after a few minutes of mindless cartoons I switched off the TV, and went to bed.

  I wasn't really tired but I figured I would force myself to sleep so that I wouldn't waste most of the next day sleeping. Even though I couldn’t use my abilities, I wanted to be out with the others while they trained.

  Chapter 14: Truth

  I was able to tag along for combat training whenever I wanted to or I could stay at the house. I really enjoyed just hanging out at the field while everyone got more fluent with their abilities. After everyone mastered taking down the wooden targets, several last line agents volunteered to spare with the others.

  I would hang back as the rest of the group would enter powerful combat with a wide range of combatants. We were introduced to some wild abilities that I couldn’t even understand.

  I walked over and stood next to Ryder, “It looks like everyone is really getting the hang of using their abilities.” An explosion peppered us with dirt and grass.

  “I really wish that we could be working on your abilities." he smiled.

  “Why are you training everyone in martial arts?” I had seen most of the moves they were now fluently using in one movie or another. I had always thought that the combat in those films was nothing more than expensive choreography and didn’t really translate into actual combat.

  “We use martial arts to teach discipline just as the creators had intended. In fact, some of the styles that we teach were developed by Kinetic users like ourselves.” He took a few steps back, “Why don’t we start your hand to hand training?” He held up his hands.

  I had made excuses up until that point and avoided taking part in the actual lessons, but as far as I knew we were still wanted, dead or alive. Powers or no, I needed some way to defend myself.

  I took a few steps back and copied what he had done with his hands.

  “What do you want me to do?” I looked at my hands trying to recall what I had seen in movies as I was growing up.

  “Whatever you can think of then we’ll go from there.”

  “Be easy, it’s my first time.”

  “Come at me with your best shot.”

  I took a deep breath and tried a surprise round house kick. As fast as I was in a blur he swiped my leg. He used enough force to not only divert the energy of my kick, but also make me lose my balance and stumble. I couldn’t catch myself and fell face first into the grass.

  “Not bad, but… not good either.” He held out his hand to help me up off the ground. I took it and pulled myself up onto my feet.

  “You are so fast!” I brushed off my front.

  “It’s part of my ability.” He said, “When I realized just how much power you had behind that kick I had to move fast or you might have crushed my skull.” He said.

  “You can tell by one kick? I would say that crushing your skull would have been useful in a fight to the death.” I really didn’t think that the kick would have caused any real damage.

  “You have a lot of raw power; your kick would have broken bones. We have determined from your group’s blood tests that they tampered with your DNA in more than one way. Your muscles are much denser and somehow lighter. So much raw power.” He pumped his fist behind his back to dissipate some pain.

  I heard Sam’s truck before I saw it. The thick cloud of dust that always kicked up when someone drove to where the tent was set up was billowed high in the sky. Everyone joined me and Ryder at the tent.

  “What’s with the visit boss?” Ryder asked.

  “I just wanted to have a chat with the new recruits.” He opened up the back of h
is truck and unloaded a cooler full of drinks. He tossed waters to everyone.

  “Is there something wrong?” I grabbed a chair, and took a seat near the tent.

  “No, everything is as it should be.” He took a deep breath, “Look, I just wanted to talk to you about a difficult topic to get into. Sometimes in our situation,” he paused pondering his words carefully, “There is death and killing ones enemies before they kill you is a necessary evil. The Aurora Corporation, as you have seen, has no reservations about taking the lot of you out of the equation.”

  “So we are supposed to just flip some switch and be soldiers.” Ronnie crossed his arms in determination.

  “I’m not saying that you should just give up on your humanity, but the Sabers for instance are killing machines that are quite literally programmed to kill. You can’t dissuade them, you can’t stop them. Most of the users that Aurora has on their payroll are there for their own reasons. They are highly trained, extremely powerful assassins.” Sam grimaced having to explain this to a group of teenagers.

  “Wonderful.” I sighed and took a swig of my water.

  "However much I hate it, you may have to kill." he looked down at the ground. “Our goal is to help people like us. We do whatever is necessary to get people out of Aurora’s grip, or at least slow them down. If we can help normal people so be it, but our kind is our priority. I know that that is a simplistic way of looking at things, but we don't have the resources to look after everyone.”

  Quiet fell as we drank our water. I thought about the first time we had seen Sam and the Last Line. Hothead and Silence had killed the Sabers without hesitation. They just did as they were told.

  The others returned to training, while I watched. Ryder helped everyone to get back into rhythm offering suggestions, and then he rejoined me sitting on the ground next to my chair.

  “How do you do it?” I squinted from the sun as it reached its highest point. The temperature had begun to rise to the normal August levels.

  “You have to understand that Aurora is more powerful than anything on the planet, and the man in charge of all that wants you dead. You can not hesitate. If you do, you die.” Ryder leaned back on his arms basking in the sunlight, "I can't say that there will always be someone to watch your back."