Control

by J. F. Jenkins

  Everyone in the room groaned. Alan quickly stopped him from continuing.

  “We have more pressing matters to attend to. Perhaps later you can tell us as I’m still quite curious about what a llama is. Right now we need to hear about what happened today and why we had to call this meeting.”

  Orlando rolled his eyes and reached around the corner to grab a piece of tape. He placed it on his paper and proceeded to stick it to the wall by the door. “I’ll leave it here and you can all read it on your own time. When you’ve done so, initial it so I know who’s seen it and who hasn’t.”

  “Are you kidding me?” JD snorted. He shook his head before getting the ball rolling. “Angela started on fire today during school.”

  This caused even Orlando’s jaw to drop. No one said anything for a long time.

  “Angela is Code Green?” Orlando asked, frowning.

  “Yes, Angela is the one who got powers today,” JD said. He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. It wasn’t like it was her fault that she exhibited powers and he still hadn’t. It wasn’t fair, but when it came to her, nothing ever was.

  “And she started on fire. The smoke alarms at school went off. Thankfully nobody saw her or got hurt,” Cadence said.

  “Started on fire,” Orlando echoed thoughtfully. “Looks like there’s hope for you being useful after all Chi-Chi, if genetics say anything.”

  JD rubbed at his forehead. If Orlando was good for something, it was teaching them all about patience. He thought he had a lot of it from being at home and dealing with his twin siblings, who were preschoolers. He found Orlando a lot more annoying.

  “Thanks, I think,” JD said, deciding to take the comment as a compliment. Controlling fire was a pretty cool superpower, a little cliché, but cool all the same. He’d be more than happy to be able to do something similar.

  For the first time since they arrived Angela opened her mouth to speak. “Alan, do you have any techniques or anything to help learn how to control this stuff? It happened so suddenly, and I couldn’t make it stop easily.” Her voice shook as she spoke.

  Alan scratched his chin. “Where I’m from, it’s common to be trained in dealing with one’s inner ability at a young age. I can see if I can find some basic materials on my ship for you to use, or perhaps download them for you.”

  She nodded gratefully before putting her attention to her fingernails. “It was scary. At first I thought I was going to die.”

  “You are safe and well,” Alan said. As usual, he didn’t seem to get it. Having powers was a normal thing where he came from, not so much on Earth.

  JD put a hand on his sister’s shoulder in an effort to be comforting. “I won’t let anything happen, okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “With Angela discovering her abilities, this is a good chance to segue to another point. The other experiments. I don’t mean to take away from her, but this is equally as important because they might be starting to exhibit changes as well,” Alan said.

  “I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’ve been trying to work my way around the social ladder to get as much information as possible. Nobody is talking about any injections though,” Cadence said.

  “They’re probably scared of it getting out that they did hard drugs or something,” JD added.

  Orlando shrugged, still staring at Angela rather intently, too intently for JD’s taste. “Of course not. I’ve heard some gossip. At the most I have a list of names of the guys from my school who were at the party that night. I wrote it down somewhere. A couple of them told me about some girls too, but I’m not sure how reliable the stories are. They’re the type who like to embellish things if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Alan said.

  With a sigh, JD jumped in. He usually played translator for the alien when he didn’t understand the ways of the Earth teenager. “Sometimes guys will lie about girls and what happens with them to make themselves look better. Does that happen back home?”

  “On occasion, yes, but it’s considered dishonorable to lie about a woman.”

  “Here too, but people do it anyway.”

  “I see, but you think you have an accurate list of sorts, Orlando?”

  The other boy nodded and started to dig around in a nearby bag for a notebook. Opening it, he found the page with the list and handed it to Alan. “I wasn’t sure if you had some kind of directory you could use to spy on them or if your superiors would be interested.”

  “We can make a copy.”

  Angela let out a soft sigh. “I know some of the girls who were there too. A few of them are on my squad. I haven’t seen anything weird yet, but I’m going to be watching closely—now more than ever. I vaguely remember seeing one of them lying on the floor when I walked in for my injection. So much of it was a blur, but a couple of things stand out. One of them was her. Another was a boy who was groaning on the floor. It scared me, and that was when I changed my mind about the whole thing before The Doctor stuck me anyway.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. JD’s fists clenched in his lap. He would get payback for what that man did to her. “Any leads on who this doctor guy is?”

  “The only one I have is the building where he and Alona had met to organize their deal. It belongs to a company called Ensure Insurance,” Alan said.

  “My sister works there,” Orlando mumbled.

  “Perhaps you can use that as a way in. I’ve accessed it via the tunnels, but I admittedly don’t know what to look for or where to go in such a business. Plus I don’t know if I can pass by undetected as easily as you. The blue and green tribes could have security to detect such a break-in.” Alan stood from his chair and started to pace the room. The guy took things way too seriously sometimes.

  Orlando raised an eyebrow as his blue eyes followed the alien back and forth. “I can if you want me to, but I doubt there’ll be anything interesting there. Hypothetically if an agent working there is one of the bad guys, they probably don’t prance around the office in a mask. That’s kind of considered weird here. I’ll pay my sister a visit when I feel like it.”

  “Soon?”

  “I’m not sure when I’ll be in the mood exactly, so I wouldn’t bank on anything.”

  Alan scowled and stopped walking. “My superiors have decided to make those two things their top priorities. Number one is the safety of the other children who were experimented on, and part of that is finding the culprit in charge of this entire operation. This man is dangerous.”

  “Really? Because I thought he was a good guy.” Orlando rolled his eyes.

  “I don’t need to deal with you giving me attitude right now.”

  Orlando stood up. “If you want better results Alan, maybe you shouldn’t bother asking children for them next time.” He headed to the door, pausing briefly to look over at Angela. “Glad you’re okay.” Then he left.

  “I don’t understand,” Alan mumbled.

  A groan, followed by a sigh. JD pinched the bridge of his nose. “You called him a child. We teenagers have fragile egos. I don’t think you’d take too kindly to being called one either? Just saying.”

  “I’m confused because he’s referred to himself as a child before in the past. Back home, I don’t like being treated with disrespect either, but we don’t go back and forth between childhood and adulthood,” Alan said.

  JD shrugged. “We’re teens. We’re stuck in-between. Just know that we want to be useful and respected, but too much responsibility is more than we can handle. It’s part of growing up, man.” He couldn’t believe he had to explain this concept. Were things really so different on Altura? Someday JD wanted to go visit it and see for himself.

  Alan resumed sitting and folded his hands in front of him. “Your culture is full of oxymorons.”

  “Yeah, that it is.” He laughed.

  “I’m going to wrap this meeting up by saying I need you to be more assertive in your mission. Enough time has passed where slack
ing is not going to be accepted anymore. I’ll check in with you soon.” He didn’t bother to say good-bye. Alan disappeared into nothing in front of their eyes, an ability JD was still trying to get used to. The alien could teleport to and from his ship, and anywhere he could visualize, within certain boundaries.

  When he first arrived, he had traveled through the atmosphere and crashed through the roof of what used to be the local mall. Now that he had traveled into Earth’s space, he could come and go as he pleased. It didn’t make a lot of sense to JD, but he stopped asking questions about the limitations of superpowers and Alturan technology awhile ago. Things were so much easier when he didn’t try to have all of the answers, which might have something to do with him handling the whole situation as best he could. Cadence was calm most of the time, but he could tell she struggled to understand it. Orlando just had authority issues. Hopefully Angela would warm up to everything nicely because they didn’t need any drama she might provide. At home she could get expressive and bratty if things weren’t going her way.

  “That was…interesting?” JD raised an eyebrow at Cadence.

  She shrugged. “He’s stressing out again. I think he has more in common with Orly than he wants to admit.”

  “You think?” He smirked.

  She touched his knee gently before standing. “Thanks for doing what you do. Your hard work with Alan is starting to pay off. He’s blending in a lot nicer than before.”

  He loved it when she did that, and he didn’t want her to move her hands away from him. As she stood, so did he, just so he could have an excuse to stay close to her. “Yeah, and it’s probably why he’s getting more grouchy. For the most part he’s more us than them, you know what I mean? Maybe I should back off.”

  “I like it.”

  JD scowled. He didn’t want her to like it, or anything Alan did. How could he compete with a gorgeous guy? Alien or not, Alan looked a lot like a movie star with his perfect dark blond hair and perfect abs. Plus he had at least a foot of height on JD. Not like he thought himself ugly by any means, but when he stood next to Alan he definitely didn’t feel like he was the obvious choice. On top of that, Alan was an adult with a little bit of a rebellious side. Girls ate that stuff up. Knowing his luck, JD would always be in the friend zone.

  “Oh please.” Angela snorted when she looked over at her brother. “Are we done here?”

  Orlando peeked his head back in and then took a seat again in a chair. “Yeah, are we done now?”

  “Thanks for sticking around,” JD said, and glared at Orlando.

  “I don’t have the energy to play nice with him right now. Got a lot more going on than bending over backwards to please Mister High and Mighty Alien.” Orlando casually leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his dyed, black, shaggy hair. The guy had a serious attitude problem.

  “He’s kind of the reason why we’re meeting like this and doing what we’re doing, man. Shouldn’t you be a little more cooperative? I think we owe him that much with how much he’s helped us and saved our butts,” JD said.

  The other teen boy shrugged and ran a hand over his face. “Like I said, I don’t have the energy for it. He’s confusing as all get out, and I’m kind of tired of him coming over here and bossing us around like we don’t have lives. Sometimes I think he’s trying to make us slaves or something.”

  “Overdramatic much?”

  “You notice he gets annoyed when we aren’t a bunch of obedient yes men.”

  Sometimes JD did notice that, but it didn’t need to be blown out of proportion. “He’s just trying to do his job.”

  “I get that, but it’s not my job. You following?”

  “No, not really.”

  Angela sighed. “I think what he means is: we’re not getting paid to do this. We’re agreeing to help him, out of our own free will, volunteering. So he needs to understand we don’t hold the same kind of allegiance to the cause.”

  “Exactly what she said.” Orlando gave her a small smirk.

  He wasn’t flirting with JD’s sister was he? No, JD was pretty sure Orlando had a girlfriend. With the way Angela leaned forward towards him, he doubted his sister would care if she knew. He needed to nip this one in the bud before it got too out of hand.

  “We’re on the same wavelength,” she said returning the smile.

  “Cut him some slack. I think we need to start taking things more seriously anyway. This is getting heavier every day,” JD said, and pushed her back to the couch so he could conveniently climb over her.

  “You’re right,” Orlando said, much to JD’s surprise.

  He almost tripped on his own two feet as he stared at the other teen boy, trying to figure out if the guy was actually serious or not. Either his sarcasm detector was off, or Orlando was being genuine. “Okay, so we can all agree on being more chill and give Alan a break?”

  “Yes,” the others said together.

  “So long as he understands we’re doing this because we want to,” Orlando added.

  JD sighed. “You know he can’t make us do anything. He tries to be respectful of all that. You’re confusing him. Look, we don’t need to sit and argue back and forth. We all know the only reason you’re giving so much attitude to begin with is because you’re grumpy about something. Who peed in your cereal this morning?”

  “Not your business.”

  “It is if you’re bringing it into our meetings,” Cadence said and gave Orlando a gentle smile.

  JD hated when she did that. He never knew what it meant. In the past, it had been a look she’d only given him. Now she was offering it up to other guys. Did that mean she liked them? Or were they all only just friends? He’d never had to deal with so much potential competition before. It’d always been just the two of them for so long. Sure she had crushes on guys, but she’d never acted on any of them. As far as he knew, she’d never had a boyfriend, period. So what did it look like when she was serious about someone?

  JD stretched, using it as an excuse to stay in the room to watch. He’d originally gotten up so he could use the bathroom, but the urge wasn’t as great now with his paranoia distracting him.

  Orlando waved a hand in front of him. “Girl issues. You’re a frustrating gender. I however, am not female, so I don’t see the point in elaborating further.”

  “Too bad because you’re being a grouch, and now you have to suffer the consequences. Besides, Cadence and I are both wonderful ladies. We’ll be able to offer you some great expertise about the issue,” Angela said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  She shook her head.

  He let out a quiet groan. “This is punishment enough for me to never let my personal life ever bother me again. I don’t like the holidays. They always put me in a bad mood, so I’d get used to it until after the New Year.”

  JD was pretty sure there was more to it. The upcoming festivities seemed like too easy of an answer, a cop out, even for Orlando, but he knew better than to call the guy out on it. If Orly felt like talking about it, he would on his own time.

  “How can you not like Thanksgiving? It’s a free food day. You can eat whatever you want, and not feel bad about it,” Angela said in disbelief.

  Orlando raised an eyebrow. “You do remember I’m a guy, right? Like I care about breaking diet habits? If I want to feast on turkey, I can do that any day of the year.”

  “But what about all of your aunts and uncles and cousins? I don’t know about you, but we hardly ever see them and—”

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, JD sighed. “Not everyone likes social gatherings as much as you do.” From what he knew about the Holmes family, he’d be surprised if there was any kind of family event. Maybe the not-liking-the-holidays part wasn’t a complete lie. Something else had to be wrong. The tension his friend held in his slouch suggested insecurity.

  “Yes, we all know I’m not exactly a butterfly in that department,” Orlando muttered.

  Angela shrugged, but let the subject dropped. She se
emed satisfied at least. Cadence, on the other hand, exchanged a look with JD. She must have been thinking like him. They’d have to get the dirt later. Something about the current situation must not have had Orlando feeling comfortable enough to talk freely.

  “Well, if you ever want to know what a good time is like, come on by to our house. We’ll have more than enough food,” Angela said, and JD groaned.

  “We barely have room as it is.”

  “So one more won’t kill anyone.”

  “I bet it’d break a fire code somewhere, so it might.”

  Orlando smirked. “Better not have another meltdown. Could be disastrous.”

  She frowned, biting on her lower lip. “I’ll have it under control by then.”

  “I could help you too,” Orlando said.

  JD watched as the two made eye contact and scowled. Overprotective brother instincts kicking in, he walked out of the room before he did something stupid. He mumbled to himself, “I’m going to head to the bathroom and when I get out, we’re going. If you aren’t ready, you’re getting left behind.”

  It wasn’t right of him to overreact, he knew that. Why was this happening? He didn’t understand what was going on in his head. This wasn’t like him at all. It’s just because of what happened at the party. He’d almost lost his sister that night, and he got a real eye-opener about her lifestyle as well. Angela wasn’t making the best decisions lately. Would being overbearing help her though? Or push her farther away?

  For now, he had her loyalty to the cause, but what would happen if she got bored or rebellious? She obviously needed structure in her life, and their parents wouldn’t have time to do it. That left the responsibility on his shoulders much like it was with all of his four siblings. Sure their dad stayed home to watch the twins, but they’d be starting school soon. It wouldn’t be long before he went and got another job. Then what? Things would get even more complicated.

  JD went to the bathroom and took his time. Cooling his jets would be a good idea, or he’d burn himself out. After all, he could only do so much. Even if he was declared by the other teens as the leader of the group, he couldn’t take care of everything. Trusting the others, especially Orlando and Angela, was hard at times. He wanted to believe Orlando, for example, wouldn’t put anyone in harm’s way. And he wanted to believe his sister would take this seriously, and not like a game. So when he came back into the room and saw the two of them exchanging phone numbers, he decided to take a leap of faith.