Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1)

by William Bernhardt

  Out the corner of her eye, she saw him slowly walking around her three companions, as if silently evaluating them.

  “The Bible instructs women to ‘Descend below all things.’ Debase youself. Strip off your worldly grandeur. When you have sunk to the lowest state imaginable, when all pretense of pride or self-love has been eliminated, then you can begin to be what God wants you to be. That’s what I’ve been doing for these girls. Helping them find God’s way. By descending.”

  His head suddenly appeared in her line of sight, eyes narrowed.

  “God also told us to be fruitful and multiply. So I will take charge of the next evolutionary step. I will breed a new race of Shines who know their place and do my—and God’s—will. Their powerful but submissive genes will comingle with mine. That’s the formula for the people of tomorrow.”

  He laid his hand on her cheek. She wanted to shake it off, but it was impossible. She had no control over her body. He could do anything he wanted to her. Anything at all.

  “I intended to initiate my genetic experiments with these poor addled wretches Hope left with barely a functioning brain in their heads. But why would I want to mate with them when I could be with the first Shine? The most powerful of them all? And that’s you, my dear. Sweet little Aura Meadows. Even if you don’t know it. I know where you came from. And I know exactly what to do with you, too.”

  All at once, he reared back his hand and slapped her hard. Her body was nonfunctional but she felt the sting just the same.

  “You think so highly of yourself. You and all your whoring friends. You think you’re better than everyone else. Homo superior.” His eyes blazed. “I will change the way you think. After a few months with me, you’ll see the truth: that you are a foul, sinful, deceiving creature. You are unclean and worthless, Aura, but thanks to me you will be the mother of the saviors of mankind.”

  He grabbed her hair and hoisted her head off the ground. “You think you’re something special? The leader of the Shines?” He laughed, spewing spittle into her face. “Aura Meadows—you’re just my best brood mare.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. “And I’m your stud horse. Whether you like it or not. Starting now.”

  Episode Five

  Who’s Gonna Stop Me?

  by William Bernhardt

  71

  Aura struggled just to purse her lips. The slightest movement required more strain and exertion than she would normally need to climb a mountain.

  “Let…go of me…you disgusting pig,” she managed.

  Trent only smiled. “I can see it’s going to take a while to break this filly. That’s all right. I like a girl with some fight in her.” He leaned in closer. She felt his hot filthy breath on her face.

  “You will…never break me…Trent.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Aura. But from where I stand, you look pretty darn broken already. You look like a helpless little girl who thought she was all so tough till she learned better. Till someone put her back in her place.” He pressed in till they were almost nose-to-nose. “I’m gonna show you what it’s like to be with a real man.”

  “If you…kiss me again…I will bite your face off.”

  Trent tightened his grip, wrapping her hair up in his fist. “You have no cards in this hand, sweetheart. I wouldn’t advise making an enemy of your stud horse. Could go rough for you.”

  “I will make a gelding of my stud horse….if you don’t let go of me.”

  Trent reared back his spare hand and slapped her hard. “Descend, foul woman. Most debased of all God’s creatures. You must descend below all things.” He wiped his mouth. “I will humble you. I will remove every scrap of your misbegotten pride. I will do it over and over again until nothing remains of the Aura who once was. I will create a new woman from the ashes of the old, the mother of a fresh breed of Shines to replace the misbegotten miscreants that now befoul the earth.”

  She tried to suppress the emotions welling up inside her. She put a brave face on it, defying him and his power. But that wasn’t what she felt inside. She peered into his crazed eyes and felt the blackness of his soul touching hers.

  And that touch filled her with terror.

  She could just barely see her three companions, outraged, struggling to inch closer, to help in whatever way they could. But there was nothing they could do. The neurotoxin had invaded their systems just as it had hers. They couldn’t move and they couldn’t Shine.

  They were powerless. Powerless, trapped, and in the hands of a self-righteous madman.

  She heard a sudden thudding sound behind her. She craned her neck enough to see Tank struggling, pounding her tremendous bulk against the tile floor.

  Tank was stronger than any of them, and she fought the drug with everything she had, rattling the room in the process. But it wasn’t enough. Gearhead was undoubtedly scheming and Twinge was probably trying to mess with Trent’s body. But none of them could fight back. He had set his trap, lured them in, and they fell for it. Now he had them pinned down like butterflies in a perverted collection.

  The imprisoned Shines they first discovered here looked empty, ruined, hopeless. She liked to think Shines were stronger than most, but she also knew that everyone had a breaking point. What had this vile man done to them?

  And how long would it be before she was just as broken as they were?

  “This will go much easier for you if you don’t resist,” Trent said, lowering her down to the dirt. “I will have what I want. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.” He hovered over her, leering, all but salivating. “Don’t force me to be an animal.”

  “I…can’t force you…anything,” Aura said, straining to spit out the words. “You are what you are.”

  “Selfish witch. Jezebel.” He slapped her again, this time even harder. She tasted blood inside her mouth. “You will learn to behave. You will descend so low the dirt is above you. Your name will be reviled by all creatures. You will be the lowest—”

  All at once, Trent froze up. His entire body stiffened, then, a fraction of a second later, he collapsed onto the floor beside her.

  Whaaaat?...

  A new face emerged in her line of sight, a scarf wrapped around the nose and mouth. She held a metal device about the size of a shoebox in her hands. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner, Aura. Couldn’t figure out how to block the toxin, so I finally just turned off the ventilation system and closed the vents.”

  She blinked her eyes, trying to assimilate the situation.

  Dream? Dream came to their rescue?

  “Yes, I know, you can’t believe how awesome I am.” Blood dripped from one side of the machine. She must’ve used it to pound Trent’s head. “Eew. I think I got that creep’s blood on me.”

  “Help…me.”

  “I will. But we need to destroy this gizmo first. Mnemo says it’s that Faraday thingie he kept ranting about.” Dream started to throw it down on the ground, then stopped when she saw Trent below her. “Tempting to break it open on this perv’s head. But that’s probably too soft to do it any damage.” She found an empty spot and slammed the machine down to the ground.

  The cage made a thunderous noise…but did not seem to suffer much damage.

  “Damn those solid-state parts,” Dream murmured.

  She heard a creaking sound behind her. Tank. “Let…me.”

  “I can see the merit in that suggestion,” Dream said, placing the cage in Tank’s hand.

  She had never been quite sure how much of Tank’s strength was Shine and how much was just because she was a big strong girl. Now it seemed clear Tank didn’t need Shine to be a wicked source of power.

  Tank grunted. Sweat dropped from her brow. And the cage began to give.

  “Come on, girl,” Dream said, “you can do this.”

  Tank lurched forward, emanating power. For a moment, Tank’s hands seemed to glow.

  The cage crumbled between Tank’s hands. “Feel any better, Aura?”

  All at once, sh
e felt a surge of energy course through her body, like blood had been restored to her veins and air returned to her lungs.

  She was a Shine again.

  Correction: she had always been a Shine. Shine was who and what she was. But that man wanted to hobble her. That man wanted to snip her pinfeathers. Now she was whole again.

  She tried to sit up—but still found every movement a challenge.

  “I left the door open so we could get some fresh air in here,” Dream said. “Mnemo tells me it will be about five minutes before your body completely flushes the neurotoxin out of your system.”

  Grunting and straining, she pushed herself upright. Trent lay beside her, his face pressed against the dirt. She wanted to pound his unconscious body till he bled from the eyes. She wanted to kick and cripple and castrate him.

  But she couldn’t. Much as that would give her pleasure. She was the leader of the Shines now, or at least a small group of them. She had to set an example.

  “You will never touch me again,” she muttered, low. “And I will see that you pay for what you’ve done to these Shines. These human beings.” She looked away. “How are you all?”

  “I’ve been better,” Twinge snapped through thin lips. “Can I give that man a case of extreme colonitis? Just as a parting gift?”

  “He’s unconscious.”

  “I don’t care. Would do me a world of good.”

  “We aren’t vengeful. We need to use whatever time we have left to search this place for information. To get these girls to safety. And to put Trent behind bars.”

  “How are we gonna do that? No one will believe the word of fugitive Shines against Trent.”

  “They will when they see what’s down here. Okay, at least one cop I know will.”

  Dream cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but…aren’t you all forgetting something?”

  “And that would be…?”

  “Your profuse thanks? Like, to the girl who just saved you from a fate worse than death? At the hands of a self-proclaimed stud horse who couldn’t be more of a creeper if he had two heads?”

  “Good point.” She clasped Dream on the shoulders. “Thank you. I have to admit…” She stopped.

  “You never thought I’d be the one to save you?”

  “Well…you did have to get your hands dirty, so you can understand my surprise. But you were here when we needed you. Maybe you’re not quite who you pretend to be.”

  Dream tossed her long blonde locks behind her. “I have hidden depths.”

  “Apparently. Let’s spread out and—”

  “Ix-nay that.” Gearhead touched her ear. “Harriet picked something up. The front-door security guards sent some kind of signal. They know something’s wrong. Reinforcements are on the way.”

  “Then we have to get out of here. But we’re taking Trent—”

  She whirled around.

  Trent was gone.

  “How did he escape? Fan out. He can’t have gone far. And without his precious cage to protect him—”

  “He’ll just have a ton of neurotoxin to which he is immune in every room,” Dream pointed out.

  They heard a thunderous rumbling sound overhead.

  “That’s Trent taking off in his choppercar,” Gearhead said. “We’ve lost him.”

  “And,” Dream said, “we have to get out of here. Fast.”

  She knew Dream was right. She used her glasses to take pictures of the scene—including the incarcerated Shines. Then she forwarded them to Lieutenant Sharma’s inbox.

  “I’ll call Sharma as soon as I can. He’ll see that these girls are given the care they need.”

  “And sent where? Mordock?”

  “No. Sharma’s cool. He won’t let them be punished for something they haven’t done.”

  “He may not have a choice, if Trent gets into the mix. And you know he will. We’re onto him and his sick little plan, and I don’t think these other Shines are all so far gone they’ll keep their mouths shut forever. He’ll be out for blood. Ours. He’ll be broadcasting on every channel, calling in all his political and scientific connections—”

  “Then we have to get to Trent before he can call out the cavalry.”

  “How? We don’t even know where Trent is.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, hustling them toward the door. “But I bet I know where he’s going.”

  72

  Aura led the group toward the famed Chronicle Tower, just around the corner from the legendary Bradbury building in downtown LA. She knew Chronicle was the tallest and most desirable office space in LA. Which would explain why the SSS had the top three floors.

  Reverend Trent occupied the penthouse suite. That was his command center. So she assumed that was where he fled in the choppercar.

  Earlier, she had rejected an assault on his office as too difficult and too risky. But now they had no choice.

  Gearhead drove them near the location in a borrowed car, then zoomed off to park it somewhere safe until it was needed again. She had jury-rigged the ignition to turn without a key, but she was the only one who knew how to do it.

  “Make sure your glasses are operational,” Gearhead cautioned as they scrambled out of the car. “For those of you not wearing them, make sure your earplugs are activated.”

  “I don’t need it,” Harriet explained. “I know what frequency you’re on. I can pick it up.”

  “You might get busy. You can only listen to one thing at a time.”

  “Not true.”

  “It isn’t? That’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

  Harriet seemed embarrassed, quickly turning her attention elsewhere. Just as well. Harriet seemed to function best when no one paid much attention to her.

  “What if you want to send a message?” she asked.

  Harriet stared at the ground. “Then I’ll turn my glasses on, obviously. Don’t worry, Aura. I got this.”

  Very well then. As they rounded the last corner, she couldn’t resist giving Dream one more look-over. “Did I mention that I love your outfit?”

  “If you love this outfit,” Dream replied, “then I’m not sleeping in the same room with you anymore.” She wore impossibly high heels and an extremely tight micro-skirt, highlighted by a dazzling combination of scoop-necked blouse and pushup bra that commanded the attention of every male (and several females) they passed on the street.

  “You must be relieved to be out of those TYL uniforms.” Gearhead had liberated their current attire from a trashy teen clothing store.

  “I suppose there is that,” Dream agreed.

  “I think the outfit gives you a new superpower, Dream. Now we have a team member who can stimulate lust.”

  “Actually,” Twinge said, “I can do that without a costume. Just increase the production of prostaglandin and give the guy a come-hither stare.”

  “Always looking for the quick fix,” Dream said. She had scanned the front-desk guard’s dreams earlier, then turned herself into the spitting image of the girl he loved and lost when he was seventeen.

  “So you think if you conjure up these aching memories, he’ll be more likely to let you pass?”

  “Or he’ll be so dumbstruck he won’t be able to think straight.”

  “Either way works.”

  “Exactly.”

  They paused before the revolving doors that led to the Chronicle Tower lobby. Once they were inside, she knew they would be subject to electronic surveillance—and their faces were well known. Security cameras could be found on every floor and all over the lobby and elevators. Guards were posted throughout. The monitors were linked to facial recognition software.

  The penthouse could only be accessed by an express elevator that required a special card key. Which they did not possess.

  She addressed the troops. “All right. Listen up. This is the last time we’ll be together till this is over. One way or the other. Everyone remember what they’re supposed to do?”

  Twinge, Dream, Tank, and Mnemo all nodded.

 
; “Everyone should bring up the schematics.” Mnemo had found blueprints of the building on file at the city planner’s office, then augmented them with information she scored about the security system. “Right in front of your face. I’ll oversee everything from my tablet.”

  They all made the adjustments.

  “I know you’re nervous,” she said, trying to find the balance between concerned leader and confidence builder. “I am too. But we can do this. I know we can. We can show the world how effective Shines can be. When they work together.”

  “Or,” Dream said, “we can show them how incompetent we can be and end up at Mordock.”

  “I’m voting for Plan A,” Twinge said.

  “Here, here,” Mnemo agreed.

  “But if it’s Plan B,” Tank added, “I’m gonna bust a lot of heads on my way to Morlock.”

  “Shouldn’t we have a rallying cry or something?” Mnemo said. “Before we go into battle?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, we all bump fists and say, All for one and one for all. Or, You go, girls. Something like that.”

  Tank: “Shake it, Shines.”

  Twinge: “Rock on, flicking freaks.”

  Dream: “We survived rehab. We’ll survive this.”

  She batted a finger against her lips. “Maybe just…Shine on!”

  All five faces stared back at their leader.

  “Well, we’ll work on that.” She placed her hand on the door. “Let’s do this.”

  73

  Aura escorted Harriet to a seat in the lobby, far enough from the front-desk guard that she shouldn’t attract any attention. And out of the line of sight of all four lobby security cameras.

  “Are you getting anything?”

  Harriet kept her fidgeting hands close to her lap. “Yes. I’ve got the Chronicle wi-fi network. I’m inside the firewall.”