Chosen Different (Book 3): Different Paths

by Kozinn, Nat

  “Kowalski! Get to the Humvee!” Sarge yells.

  Kowalski was just waiting for permission to do what common sense would advise: run away from the monster. He breaks into a full-on sprint away from the fray.

  The Beast looks away for just a moment to watch his fleeing prey, and in that moment, Sarge pulls a metallic grey object off his vest.

  “Flashbang!” he yells as he tosses the object at The Beast. The three remaining soldiers cover their eyes.

  The object explodes on The Beast, singeing his flesh, but more importantly, burning a white-hot light into his eyes. It is all he can see. All he can hear is a loud ringing, punctuated by some small little dings. Those dings correspond with holes in his flesh, gunshots.

  The soldiers were rattled by the flashbang. The device is not meant to be used in such close proximity. Their shots are wild and inaccurate, but their guns fire rapidly and the magazines are large. Several bullets cut into The Beast, putting holes in his shoulders and chest.

  The Beast panics, his senses dull. He lashes out towards one of the guns, lunging with his knife. Accuracy is not required from such a devastating weapon, and The Beast catches a soldier with just the tip of the blade, cutting open his torso like an envelope, his insides spilling onto the ground.

  The Beast roars and charges at the next closest source of gunshots. He ploughs into the man, knocking the still-firing soldier to the ground. He tears at the warm flesh with his claw and cannot see which body part endures his wrath, but humans are weak all over.

  One source of pain continues to fire. A bullet hits The Beast square in the forehead, the metal slug embedding itself into his thick skull without penetrating further. The burning white light is melting away from The Beast’s eyes, and he can see a shadow, and the shadow’s arm winding up to throw something.

  The Beast lunges, covering the arm and smothering the flashbang, which explodes, burning The Beast and blowing Sarge’s hand to bits.

  Sarge screams until the Beast rips his throat out.

  He has no time to savor his kills. The Lord commanded him to stop any and all Forgotten Sons he finds. There can be no exceptions if he hopes to earn his redemption.

  His vision is still foggy, and his balance is still off-kilter, but his nose was spared. He can follow Kowalski’s scent like a river. He knows what fear smells like.

  Kowalski is running as fast as his legs can carry him, slowing only to glance back and make sure the nightmare isn’t gaining on him. He slides down a hill, ripping open his hand and leg on rocks and thistles. He doesn’t care. Right now he’d cut off his own arm to get away from here.

  The Humvee is just where they left it. Kowalski fumbles with the door before taking a breath and entering the vehicle. He turns the ignition, which turns over for two harrowing seconds before it catches.

  Kowalski pops the vehicle into drive and steps on the gas. The wheels spin but the car does not move, even as he floors the pedal. He looks in the rearview mirror and sees why. He has an anchor: eight hundred pounds of Different with a firm grip on his back bumper.

  7

  Before you grab your pitchforks, hear me out. I’m not justifying the strike. There’s no excuse for letting people starve or freeze or lose track of those they hold most dear. But, if you can separate intention from action, perhaps the Differents who went on strike have a bit of a point. Their working conditions are often terrible, they have no control over their own occupation, they are forced to live in a segregated community, and they are obligated to work to pay off a debt they had no choice but to incur. I know the common response, that even with all those adverse conditions the average (non-Zeta) Different enjoys a quality of life much better than the average American. I know many of you, dear readers, say you would gladly take on COL obligations and do whatever you had to in order to gain secure employment. You wonder why Differents deserve more simply because of an accident of birth. To that I say professional athletes are born with unique physical prowess, as are actors and models. We allow them to keep the fruits of their labor, and they just entertain us. Differents feed, house, and connect us. Don’t they at least deserve to get rich?

  “Neither Side is Righteous” by Forest Brown, think.Net News LA (printed in the Los Angeles Times)

  The truck shakes and rumbles as it makes its way down the tattered asphalt that we’re calling an interstate highway. Riding in a car is a much more unpleasant experience than riding in a train. There are more dips and turns, and near constant bumps. I can only imagine how unpleasant this is for the people who can’t directly control the fluid in their inner ear to keep a sense of balance. And this highway is supposedly maintained, because they need it to service the intercontinental train system.

  “Rough ride, huh?” I say to Deputy Attorney General Karen Grant, who has her face buried in a notebook.

  “You get used to it. We’re almost at the turn to the forward army base. After that, we go off-road, and it gets really nuts,” she says without looking up.

  “I never asked, am I reporting to the National Guard or to you? Because I don’t remember civics class all that well, but I think you work for the Justice Department, which is not the same thing as the military.”

  “You are correct. I am not acting in an official capacity, but rather as a personal representative of the President. I am merely the liaison between you and the administration,” Ms. Grant says, shifting her weight in her seat.

  “In other words, this is being done on the down low so you can all wipe your hands of me if the plan blows up,” I say and turn my attention to the barren wasteland out the window. The Deputy just huffs.

  We’re passing through the far outskirts of what was the city of Phoenix, Arizona, at least if my mental map of the old U.S. is correct. There’s no one living here now, not even any off-the-grid settlements. This area was a desert before the Plagues, but now it’s as barren of life as the surface of the moon.

  The encroaching sand makes the half-collapsed buildings and torn up streets look older than they really are. If someone told me I was looking at ruins that were two hundred years old, not thirty, I would believe them. I wonder if we’ll ever bother trying to live out here again, even if Differents and humans start getting along. The area could be rehabilitated. The Manna Fields are in a desert too, but they’ve managed to transform the soil into the most fertile ground on earth. The same could be done here, but will we bother? The country has gotten used to living in the Metro Areas; will it ever be worth the trouble to return to our rural roots?

  I’m jogged out of my musings because I suddenly realize I was wrong, there actually is someone out there among the ruins. And they are staring right at us.

  I rush fluid to my eye, bending my cornea to focus my vision on the distant man. He suddenly lifts his hands, almost like he’s pushing something, but his hands are empty.

  An invisible wave hits us, and instead of moving forward on the road, our car is now airborne and moving sideways. I manage to slow things down once we’re mid–air. The buckles on the seat belts are all pointed in the wrong direction, away from our momentum. I think we got hit by a magnetic field, polarized to repel us. Ms. Grant is hanging upside down by her seat belt. This truck is about to go for a hell of a ride and a seatbelt is not going to be enough protection. I use my arms to push off the seat, fighting inertia. I wrap my arms around the woman and brace for impact.

  We spin end over end a dozen times. Metal screeches and tears, creating a horrific symphony of destruction. No way can the soldiers up front survive this. I see the red streaks of their blood hanging in the air. Each time the car rolls, the metal sides are bent and shattered more and more. I push my back up against the roof of the car, helping buttress against the force of the car flipping over.

  The metal continues to tear, leaving behind razor-sharp edges that rip my skin. I feel the impact of each landing as my body absorbs obscene amounts of force that would have shattered my original bones to pieces. Finally, the car comes to a screechin
g halt.

  But we are not given a moments respite. I hear the sound of another twisted metal projectile, our escort car, I presume. The truck bounces and skids and smashes into us, flipping us over one more time and jamming more bits of jagged metal into my body. At least we land upright.

  “Are you ok?” I ask the Deputy Attorney General in my arms.

  “No, but I’ll live,” she says and pulls herself out of my arms. She cranes forward to look in the front seat. “Not our drivers though.”

  She pulls out a pistol from a holster at her hip, checks the barrel, then cocks the hammer. She leans down and roots around in a duffel bag at our feet.

  I use the moment to take stock of my injuries. Compared to the usual status check, things look pretty good. I’ve got a contusion in one of my knees and a host of surface levels cuts, but considering that I was in a full-speed car accident, I can’t complain. I wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt.

  Ms. Grant digs a radio out of her bag and holds down the button.

  “This is Deputy Attorney General Karen Grant. Our convoy has been attacked. We are ten klicks west of the forward position and need assistance immediately. Mayday, mayday!” she screams into the radio.

  We wait for a response, but there’s nothing except static. I’m distracted by a whiff of a very distinct odor that I’ve only smelled a few times in my life, most recently when Detective Rose was going to burn down that abandoned house back when I was tracking Billy the Kid. It’s gasoline! Then I remember every Pre-Plague action movie I’ve ever seen. If they taught me anything, it’s that cars explode.

  “We need to get out of here, now!”

  I try the door to my side, but it’s battered beyond functionality. I wrap my right arm around Ms. Grant’s waist then kick out the broken door. She’s heavier then she looks, but still nothing to me.

  “What the hell are you doing? We could be walking right into a trap,” Ms. Grant protests.

  “We’re in a trap right now,” I say.

  I charge out of the car, leading with my left shoulder while I hold Ms. Grant behind me in case we are walking into a hail of gunfire. Out in the open, I can’t even tell where the Magnet Different was standing. It looks like the same nothingness in all directions. I pick one of those directions and leap away. We make it fifty yards, and I put Ms. Grant down behind the crest of a small hill. I look back, and sure enough our former transportation vehicle ignites in flames. There’s no cool explosion like the movies have taught me, but I’m still glad we’re not inside.

  “We’re sitting ducks out here. There are at least fourteen Different individuals in the group that overtook the arms depot,” Ms. Grant says.

  “Fourteen? You never told me there were fourteen. How am I supposed to fight fourteen Differents?”

  “You were going to have the support of the National Guard. They just needed you to take out the Telepaths, after that the military could safely move in and engage the rest of the targets.”

  “Looks like I’m going to have to pull it off without support.”

  I stand up from behind the ridge and scan my surroundings. I think back to the view from the car window when I spotted the Magnet man. By comparing what I see now to my memory, suddenly there are differences in the landscape. The nothingness has subtle variations in its emptiness. It takes me five seconds of analysis until I find where the Magnet was standing. When I get a good look, I realize I didn’t need the complicated analysis; the area is a flurry of activity. There are at least fifty people moving around.

  “There’s a lot more than fourteen,” I say and point.

  Ms. Grant stands up and looks on with me. I watch her squint to get a view into the distance; she can’t control her eyes pressure like I can, and thus the shape of her cornea, so squinting can only do so much.

  “Where in the hell did they get reinforcements?” she asks.

  There’s a whistling sound, and it’s growing louder. I slow time to locate the source. It’s coming from above. I turn my head up and see something that doesn’t look right: a human body flying through the sky, being carried by giant, white-feathered wings. A Flyer!

  She drops something. It’s small and round… a grenade. If it hits, it’ll kill Ms. Grant.

  I bend my knees and leap grabbing Ms. Grant and diving away from the blast. I land with a thud. I receive a few more deep cuts and gashes from the shrapnel, but my thick muscles insulate me from any serious damage, as usual. I saved Ms. Grant from injury too.

  “Run,” I scream to the Deputy Attorney General. I take off in the opposite direction

  Two more whistles and two more grenades come down at me. I turn and leap to the side, landing just outside the blast zone. More whistles and more grenades and I break into a full sprint, leading the Flyer away from the Deputy Attorney General.

  I keep running with explosions following in my wake. She’s corralling me east, towards where I saw all those men gathering. She’s leading me right into their clutches. Or she will if I let her. I slow down for a second, just so she thinks she has a bead on me. Then right as the whistle is getting close, I break into an all-out, full-speed sprint.

  It works; she wasn’t ready. I look back, and she’s flapping her wings furiously, trying her best to catch up. Once I’ve got a five hundred yard lead, I plant my foot, turn, and head right back towards her. Then I bend my knees and leap straight at her, flying through the air like I’m on a rocket.

  There’s terror in her eyes, but it quickly turns to resolve. I slow down time just enough to watch her tuck her wings to her sides and drop like an eagle plunging into a river to catch a fish. I end up leaping clear over her, but she did leave a gift behind—a grenade floating in the sky. All I can do is watch as my momentum carries me right into the explosive.

  I put up my left arm to take the brunt of the explosion and feel the air being ripped out of my lungs, replaced with hot burning nothing. Explosions create a vacuum, and this one was close enough to devastate my lungs, superheating the oxygen even as it’s ripped from my body. The silica and mucus inside my lungs fry as I’m burnt from the inside.

  I land with a belly flop that bruises my ribs. I try to take a deep breath, but all I feel is fire. I exhale and try again and again, but I’m barely getting any oxygen into my system. I can already feel the O2 being drained from my blood and the thirst from my insides, desperately wanting more. I breathe faster and faster.

  I’m panicking. I don’t need more breaths; I need more oxygen out of each one I take. I breathe in, slowly and deeply, making sure to fill the entirety of my chest cavity with air. Then I hold my breath, giving my lungs time to get the oxygen they need. The cells are damaged, but enough of them function to absorb a little oxygen. Now I need time to heal, time I won’t get.

  There’s another whistle, and I try to scramble away but only make it a few feet before my muscles give out on me. Cells need oxygen to function, and I don’t have enough. I’m spared by the Flyer’s poor aim. The grenade lands a distance away, merely pelting me with more shrapnel. A comparative walk in the park.

  The Flyer turns around and heads back towards me. I’m not going to be able to get away. I pick up a rock at my feet and prop myself up so I can make a decent throw. I take aim and wait. This is my only chance.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Gunfire, and blood spurts out of one of her wings. She cries out and tries to steady herself with her one good side, but she can’t keep herself in the air and crashes back down to earth. Hard.

  Deputy Attorney General Karen Grant blows the smoke from her gun barrel for effect. I roll onto my back so I can breathe more freely. I’m generating new lung tissue as quickly as I can, but it is still going to be some time until I’m back up to full speed. I’ll just ask the army of Differents to wait.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! More gunfire, and this time it didn’t come from Ms. Grant. Those fifty men I saw in the distance are now charging straight for us. They are armed with a smorgasbord of handguns, rifles, and machine guns. They s
hoot vaguely in our direction as they charge.

  Why are they wasting their bullets? They are too far away to hit us. They look like they have no idea what they’re doing. And they all have brown hair and the same outfit. Walters. There’s a squadron of Walters coming after us.

  “They’re Walters!” I yell and point.

  “Since when can they shoot?” she asks with a mix of surprise and horror.

  “Running and pulling a trigger isn’t any more complicated than mopping a floor. Any Telepath can push instructions into their minds.”

  “Their aim is terrible.”

  She’s right. They’re all firing wildly, some even aiming towards the sky. But enough monkeys with enough typewriters can give you Shakespeare, so I think a lot of Walters and a lot of bullets can kill us, eventually.

  “We need cover,” I say and point off to the remains of an old concrete irrigation canal. Hard to believe anything ever grew in this wasteland.

  We hustle over, or Ms. Grant does. I have to stumble/saunter at a pace that is reasonable given the situation but not too taxing on my already oxygen-depleted muscles. I end up taking two stray bullets in the back from lucky Walters, but I need to conserve oxygen more than I need to not be shot.

  We get low in the canal. The Walters will look for us, but they are stupid and slow. We are relatively safe.

  “Ms. Grant, my lungs are injured. I need time to heal,” I whisper.

  “You lay low. I’ll cover you. And call me Karen,” she says.

  I nod, close my eyes, and lay down. I flood my blood with water and nutrients I pull from my digestive system. I deny all the other hungry tissue in my body and send the nutrition to my lungs. I instruct the cells there to divide rapidly, using the nutrients I provide to power the growth of new cells. Meanwhile, I direct my immune system to break down the dead and dying old tissue. Much of the remains are absorbed into the mucus on the wall of my lungs, and then I can digest the cells and recover some more nutrients.