Age of Power 1: Legacy

by Jon Davis

  He met my eyes as he said, "Literally, the odds of such an event are pretty much one in seven billion. Would the people of Earth like to have seen more? Of course, they would. But that's never going to happen. At least not in our life-times.”

  Eisenhawk looked at me with a strange, sad expression for a moment before he went on.

  He said, “Vaughn, I would urge you to see reality as it is and move on with your life. I've read the file the FBI psychologists have on you. I asked them to profile you, just to be certain you wouldn’t turn into a pro-Avatar fanatic. A fanatic who believed humans could have such abilities. Allow me give you a bit of advice. You should consider other things beyond the fantasy of superheroes and comic books. Travel and see the world, Vaughn—you’re too smart for the provincial small-town attitude that you’ve shown."

  Wow…so much for cooperation. I just stared at him for a moment before I said, "Sorry, I can't help you any further, Dr. Eisenhawk. I told the FBI exactly what happened. I have to go now. I have real things to do. Bye, now.”

  Before I could move, Eisenhawk reached over, grabbed my hand, and looked at me—and I mean he looked at me, hard. It felt as though pressure was building up behind my eyes. It reminded me of what had happened with Kular on my birthday. Just as it had happened then, the same thing happened again; I suddenly had Angela in my head. The memory of her walking up to Brand and me at the memorial replayed in my mind’s eye.

  Letting go of my hand, Eisenhawk asked, "Who is Paradoxis?"

  I could only give him a blank look. "Who is…what?"

  He said, "There's a figure who has been in the Third Tier chat rooms on the Internet. She's a phad ghost, and she calls herself Paradoxis. The woman is a shadow. No details exist about her beyond what’s been seen on the Internet. I suspect she's the one who created the cult of the Empowered. She's connected to several messages in the blogosphere about them. Do you know of her?"

  I shook my head. "Dude, what the hell are you talking about?"

  That was completely unexpected! Third Tier chat rooms were just some experiment by a new company called ViaSoft. They were taking advantage of the phad's more advanced potential for virtual reality. Brand tried a limited-time use of the Third Tier that had come with his phad’s pre-installed programs.

  He said it reminded him of the Internet world called Second Life. But in this case, it added earpods and virtual reality glasses. Unfortunately, that stuff was still too expensive for me. And since I’d never had gone on it, this bureaucrat was just wasting time. But it wasn't as though I could just get up and leave.

  Wait…Paradoxis. As in…P. Doxis? Whoa…okay, we had a connection. But I had no idea what it was. I definitely had to get out of there. The way he was throwing questions at me made me wonder just what he knew about powers, about me, and about… I looked at him.

  I said, “Why would that be important to me? I'm just a victim of the bombings. What are you getting at, Eisenhawk?"

  Eisenhawk took a deep breath and said, "We know you've had contact with her. We've managed to track her online movements, to an extent, and we know she’s talked directly with you at least once. What did she say to you?"

  Stunned by this revelation, I muttered, "You bastards you tracked me on the Internet! You know where I was! She just wished me a happy birthday in a public chat room! That was it! Enough of this!"

  Eisenhawk blinked at the anger in my voice and started to say something when I stood. The chair skidded across the carpet hard, nearly falling over. Grabbing my jacket, I pulled back from the table.

  I pointed a finger at him and snapped, "You will leave me alone—now! If she were after me for something, she'd have said more and not just left an email! And if you know she talked to me, you know what she said. Damn, man, first, all the crap with the goddamn psychos in town, then Andrews sends them at me, and now you bastards go way over the line where my life is concerned! You people ever hear of the word ‘privacy?’ I'm out of here! Enough of this bullshit! If you've got something on me, then arrest me!"

  He snapped at me. "Vaughn, I'm trying to warn you. You have to contact me if you come across anyone claiming to be one of the Empowered. They could be extremely dangerous!"

  I shook my head. "Please. If Alex was the only one who had superpowers, then these guys are just a bunch of nuts, like the ones taking over my town! Don't drag me into your paranoia-filled fantasies! If there’s a terrorist, then find her! And do it before she does something beyond just firing rockets into cars!"

  I yanked the door open, and Agent Dobrowski stood there, barring my way. I said, "You gonna arrest me for witnessing a bombing? Please! Be my guest! Then watch your names pop up on tomorrow's news! Hell, I have my own fan base! Since you hacked my laptop, you should know that! Now, do you want to see what they do when I tell them what I got arrested for?"

  I glanced at Eisenhawk and said, "I wonder how people would react if they found out there was another cult running around with explosives in hand?"

  I went back to glaring at the FBI agent. Dobrowski glanced behind me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eisenhawk nod. I left the room and brushed past Dobrowski, not saying anything further. I headed to the reception area, where Dana was waiting for me while talking with Miras. Snappishly, I said, "I'll be outside, cooling down."

  Without another word, I stormed out and practically stomped my way to Dana's SUV. Leaning against the front of it, I waited for her while I did my best to calm myself. I realized that I was losing control of my hearing. I heard voices, the wind, sounds of vehicles. I took a deep breath, focusing on anything I could to bring it under control.

  Bit by bit, I managed to set aside each sound. Until finally, Dana’s voice was the only thing I heard. “Vaughn? What happened back there? What did the agents say?”

  Straightening, I just said, "Can we drive around for a little while before picking up BJ?"

  Dana nodded. She said, "He called me while I was in getting interviewed. He's on a later flight due to weather in the Rockies."

  A tremor was in my voice when I said, "Good, because there's a lot I have to tell you."

  Not saying anything beyond raised eyebrows, Dana and I got in the SUV. Instead of going out the same way we’d come in, we left the complex out the back way. To the south of the administration building were several bungalows of various colors. I knew they were homes for the staff working at Ryan Tech.

  After we passed the last house, I said, “They have bodies back there.”

  Dana yelled, “What?”

  Dana almost ran us off the road as she stared at me. I grabbed the dash out of reflex while she got control. Skidding to a stop in the muddy slush, Dana shoved the SUV into park at the side of the road.

  She turned to stare at me and said, “How did you hear about—? Oh, never mind, what did you hear? Tell me everything! You were pissed when you left. What happened back there?”

  I took a deep breath and told her everything. As I recounted Ryan’s argument she smirked. “I’m stunned they let you get out of there without demanding some blood.”

  I shuddered at the image of crazy scientists coming at me with needles while yelling, “This will only sting a little!”

  But I laughed at the thought and said, “I lucked out. They were both too busy yelling to even notice that I was right outside the office.”

  She grinned and said, “Wait until they see the sign-in sheet with your name on it.”

  Dana pulled onto the access road and quickly drove away. Once we were away from the main complex, I told her about Eisenhawk, and what we argued about. Looking troubled, she said, “Okay, now I am disturbed. Why in the hell would Eisenhawk bring you into their problems? Don’t take this wrong, Vaughn, but you’re not exactly high security.”

  As we turned onto a snow covered dirt road. I gave a shrug and said, “I haven’t a clue. And…”

  Dana glanced at me. “Vaughn? What’s wrong?”

  I found myself looking around the area. I noticed that, whi
le we were well away from Ryan Tech, there was a lot of noise coming from somewhere behind us for a quiet country road. It reminded me of a train clacking on the tracks, and it was getting faster. I looked behind us and saw snow on the road arcing high up in the air, moving closer. “Oh, hell!”

  “Dana stop the SUV! Now!” I yelled. Grabbing the keys, I turned off the SUV while it was still moving.

  “Vaughn! What’s wrong with you?” Dana yelled as she looked back the way I pointed. Her eyes widened with a mixture of shock and understanding.

  She said, “Damn! Go! Go! Go!”

  We barely jumped to safety in time. Just as we rolled into the ditches, an explosion thrust the back of the SUV into the air. I ducked down into the snow just as it slammed back to the ground with a thundering crash.

  Looking up out of the snow, I saw that the gas tank was blasted apart from underneath the chassis. The back axle was in two pieces, melted from the u-joint out to both tires. And the heat burst had scorched and pitted the paint and metal across the entire back. Looking across the road, I saw Dana staring at the SUV and then at me. Whatever had done this was gone. No, not whatever—whoever.

  I stood up and shook off the snow. Then I realized how stupid doing that was. Whoever our attacker was, he could come back at any moment. I began to duck back down when the world blasted around me. Out of control, I went flying toward Dana. Her eyes widened just before I knocked her to the side. Then I hit a tree, wrapping around the trunk and sliding to the ground. Snow from the branches nearly buried me with a heavy whumping sound.

  I know I grayed out for a moment. All I could do was lay there, half buried as someone walked up to me. Suddenly, the world spun around as I was lifted up in the air. My head cleared enough that I could see a guy in a black suit with thick gray stripes running down to a point at the belt. He was the same person I’d seen just prior to Main Street was attacked. That included the full head mask he had on with tinted eye pieces hiding his eyes.

  In a muffled voice, he said, “You! What did the government tell you? What do they know about the Empowered?”

  I took a breath and whistled hard.

  He shook me and said, “You dumbass! That last blast screwed your brain so bad that nothing works! So forget it! You can’t use your powers! Now tell me! What does Ryan Tech know about us? About Yasmine? Do they know anything about the Empowered at all? Tell me!”

  The world spun again as he twisted me around to slam me into the same tree I had hit before. That was stupid of him. The pain I was in made it impossible to tell him anything. Now I could barely focus my thoughts, much less talk.

  The buzzing in my head was there, but that’s all there was. I was out of it. I couldn’t have attacked him if my life depended on it. Which, of course, it did.

  Shaking me again, he said, “Come on, Hagen! What do they know about the Empowered? Do they know about Yasmine? Do they know about me? Damn it! What do the remnants know?”

  I shook my head. A stupid move, but the pain cut through my fuzz-filled brain enough to let me answer. I said, “Nothing…and who the hell are you?”

  The masked man looked at me and laughed. After a second, he snarled and said, “God, you are pathetic! I should just kill you. It would be a mercy killing. And if you’re on Paradoxis’s side, you’re just the enemy, anyway, so why the hell not?”

  What was that about Paradoxis? For that matter, who were these mystery women? Or did he say, ‘paradox…?’ I tried to use my powers again, but my head was hurting too much. I think I managed a slight warble. It sounded like a pretty bird, and speaking of pretty birds, I realized that Dana was going to be late picking up BJ if we didn’t get there soon enough…wow, where had Angela come from?

  Without warning, my attacker threw me at Angela. Just as I was about to hit her, she ducked. Arcing over her crouched body, I hit the ground and skidded into a drift of snow. Great, buried in snow again—this was getting ridiculous! My consciousness blurred even more. After a moment, cold snapped me back to some semblance of reality. I realized that there was snow under my jacket and shirt. It was very, very cold. Oh yeah, I was definitely not thinking clearly.

  But it brought me awake enough to push myself back to my feet. I started to go after that costumed idiot. I froze when I realized that Angela really was there. She was wearing the same black and purple striped outfit that I’d seen her wearing on the roof of the bank. But I hadn’t seen the short sword that was now in her hand. And for some reason, that sword looked very familiar. Her outfit was almost the same as the speedster’s.

  In a burst of light, she disappeared. Before I could react, Angela reappeared and slashed the sword down his back at an angle. He screamed in pain and rage. When he turned to confront her, I saw that he hadn’t quite gotten out of the sword’s way. A diagonal slash ran down his back, and blood showed in the wound.

  Ignoring the pain, our attacker tensed. He screamed. “You freaking bitch! I’m going to have you dead!”

  The air began to waver around his hands. Heat energy. And it looked…weirdly familiar. Building the energy into a tight ball of heat, he turned to raise his hands to point at Angela. The air between them flashed with tightly focused white fire. And the fight was on.

  To my surprise, Angela crouched and moved to the side with a twisting motion as the heat burst passed her to explode against the stand of trees. I flinched back as waves of high heat caused them to burst into kindling and ash. Then I saw Dana was still unconscious and about to be hit by flaming wood. Yelling, I scrambled to my feet and ran to her. I barely pulled her out of the way, as the first large branches hit the snow.

  I heard a cry from Angela. I had to ignore it to pull Dana to safety. As I dragged Dana out of the ditch, I passed near the back of the SUV. I covered her when a large branch hit the back of the melted truck and almost exploded over the two of us. I cried out in pain when I felt coal hot pieces of wood bounce off my back. The trees were cracking apart from the super-heated fire.

  A burst of heat went into the SUV and blew out the front with a loud roar and bright flames. I swore, and, grabbing up Dana, I flung us into the deep snow of the ditch. After a moment, I pushed my head up out of the snow. I could see that Angela was still fighting, but she was barely holding her own. I heard Angela yell something about Yasmine and Paradoxis. Then the two of them rapidly changed tactics. ‘Speed boy’ and Angela began a furious fight of high speed punches with Angela blocking him with sword, hands, and feet. For a second or two, it seemed like an even match.

  Then a fist made it past Angela’s guard. She went flying back into the undamaged trees on our side of the road. But while she was in pain, she wasn’t out of the fight. With another flash of light, she popped from one point to another right behind the speedster. Again, she tried to slash him with the sword. Seeing it reflect the light, I realized where I’d seen it before. She was using a Lord of the Rings replica of the short sword, Sting.

  This time, he dodged the sword and let loose a heat burst, clipping Angela in the leg. Angela came down hard. I tried to yell again. But all I got for my effort was a spiking headache behind my eyes. The speedster ignored me and stalked toward her.

  With a growl, he said, “You know what? I told Yasmine to kill you. You should’ve taken me out when you had the chance, bitch. Now I’m going to end you. Then I’ll take out Hagen and his favorite witch.”

  Suddenly, my eyes hurt just trying to focus on him. He was rapidly generating increasing amounts of heat. I covered Dana and pushed us down deeper into the snow. It didn’t help much. I could feel the snow start to melt around me. I felt like I was in front of a blast furnace.

  I took a breath to try to scream. It hurt my lungs. Bad move—now everything hurt. Yet, I had to stop this guy from killing us.

  Then sparkling bursts of yellow light appeared. Before I could react, the world turned bright white. Oh wonderful. Now I was going blind on top of everything else. Angela yelled. “Damn it, Alan, not yet! We have to stop this—”

/>   Then I lost my mind. I must have. Because as my sight returned, my whole world had changed. Instead of being on a snow-covered country road, I was now in an alleyway. There was no snow on the ground. In fact, it felt as though it was summertime. That was insane, right? Then Dana’s moan grabbed my attention. I found myself smiling as her eyes opened. I looked around as Angela started to swear as she got to her feet.

  She was angry but otherwise fine. I continued trying to figure out where we were. It was obvious that we were in an alley. Back doors, garbage dumpsters, posters on the walls to a variety of places I’d never heard of. But none of the posters said what city this was. I did have one clue. I could smell a saltiness in the air. And in the distance, I heard the sound of boat horns mixed in with car traffic. Alright, a coastal city. But that didn’t tell me which coast.

  I muttered, “Where the hell are we?”

  I winced with pain. Talking hurt…moving hurt. I hoped that nothing was broken, but I wasn’t feeling too good. Just the same, as Dana started to sit up, I realized that I needed to push past it. Wherever we were, I couldn’t take the time to worry, not when we might have just been teleported. Teleported…did I just say ‘teleported?’ Never mind, help now, worry later. Dana slowly began to get to her feet. I helped her up. She was dazed, but she didn’t seem too badly hurt.

  I brilliantly explained our situation. “Hey, uh, I don’t know where we are.”

  “Safe.” I looked up and saw Alan Tursow. He was coming up to us from the far end of the alleyway. He was holding onto shirts and blue jeans. He was wearing the same types of outfit as Angela, and our attacker had on. Except for the different colors of the thick strips on the sides of the jackets, they all seemed to be from the same military outfit store.

  Though Angela looked angry, Alan simply handed her a shirt and pants as he said, “Sorry. But he had you dead to rights, sis. I couldn’t take the chance. And security was coming; you know we can’t let them find out about us, not yet.”