HALLOWED GROUND

by James Somers

  Samuel seized the creature again, flinging him toward the inferno. Nemesis tore away a section of the pavement trying to resist. Instead, he blew himself apart into fragments again. Samuel tried to contain him, but the fragments scattered and melted down through sewer grates in the street.

  Samuel waited, but nothing more happened. The creature had apparently fled. He flew over the plaza, coming to rest on the street before the police transports. There he spotted Jonathan and Jay among the officers.

  Blood stained Samuel’s face and clothes. He didn’t smile. The game had not been fun. “There you are,” he said.

  Samuel levitated several of the officers off of the ground. “Dr. Young, you and your friend are coming with me. Get into one of the police transports now, or I’ll kill these policemen. Your choice.”

  Jonathan and Jay looked at one another. “Jonathan, I don’t think we have much choice.”

  Jonathan nodded and walked to the closest transport. “Fine. We’re not going to have their blood on our hands, Stokes.”

  Jay followed Jonathan. Samuel followed them into the transport, and the door closed behind them. The officers fell to the street, confused.

  Samuel looked at Jonathan. “You, what’s your name?”

  “Jonathan.”

  Samuel sat down across from Jay in the personnel bay. “Good. Jonathan, you’ll drive while I have a talk with Dr. Young.”

  Jonathan looked at Jay, puzzled, then at Samuel. “I don’t have a clue how to drive one of these things.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Jonathan,” Samuel threatened.

  “I’ve never even laid eyes on this kind of vehicle before,” Jonathan insisted.

  Samuel looked at Jay. “Fine, Dr. Young, you drive. We’ll talk on the way. I’m sure you know where we need to go better than anyone, anyway.”

  Jay appeared confused, but he switched places with Jonathan. “Where are we going?”

  Samuel smiled as Jonathan sat down across from him. “Let’s start heading west and then we’ll see.”

  The police carrier van started and pulled away from the convoy parked inside Halo Tech Plaza. Beneath the transport, a stray black tentacle recoiled into the undercarriage.

  14 PRESSING ADVANTAGE

  Samuel sat opposite Jonathan on the bench attached to the side wall of the police van. He examined Jonathan. Jay sat in the driver’s seat, wondering where in the world Stokes wanted to go and for what purpose. “Take the sky lane, Dr. Young.”

  Jay punched in a sky lane request. The dashboard display indicated all clear for a merger with sky lane twelve. “Would you mind telling me where in the world we’re headed?” Jay asked.

  Samuel never took his eyes off Jonathan, even when speaking to Jay. “I want the girl, Dr. Young.”

  Jay’s heart sank in his chest. Surely he didn’t know about Margot. He and her parents had been so careful to keep her existence a secret from the Halo Project and the other children involved. He decided to try a bluff. “I’m not taking you out cruising for girls, Samuel.”

  Samuel stifled a laugh. “Amusing, Dr. Young, but futile. I know all about Margot. You’re going to take me to her.”

  Jay lost control of his temper. “If you think I’m turning over my daughter to a psychopath, then your crazier than I thought. Do whatever you want with me, but you’re not going anywhere near Margot. I’ll never let you hurt her.”

  “Hurt her?” Samuel seemed genuinely baffled. “I’m going to protect her from people like you.”

  “People like me?” Jay couldn’t contain himself. “I’m her father.”

  “You are not her real father.” The entire police van shook with Samuel’s indignation. “Her parents died. They were a part of the Halo Project, Dr. Young. You may have taken the girl under your wing, but she is not yours. She’s not even like you…she is one of my kind.”

  Jay’s squeezed the steering wheel so tight his fingers went numb with rage. “One of your kind?”

  “Yes, Doctor…the same kind that you and Sarkov butchered once we could serve no other purpose for you.”

  The police van rose into the air, merging with sky lane twelve. Jay slapped the autopilot button and swiveled in his seat. He pointed at his chest indignantly. “I never killed anyone, Samuel.”

  “No? Well the company you run certainly did, Dr. Young. My brothers and sisters in the program were all slaughtered by your people before their eighteenth birthday.”

  Jonathan looked at Jay puzzled, but said nothing.

  “That was Sarkov and Psy-Corp who did that, not me or my company,” Jay argued.

  “Your Halo Tech purchased Psy-Corp, Doctor. That makes you responsible!”

  Jay almost stood up out of his seat. “I purchased Psy-Corp in hopes of putting an end to Sarkov’s brand of so-called research, Samuel. I hoped to protect you children from further harm…that’s all.” Jay tried to calm down. “When the others began to have psychotic breaks, they were put down.”

  “Don’t you mean killed, Doctor?” Samuels face burned bright red.

  “They had grown too dangerous. We couldn’t risk them escaping and killing more people. Sarkov may have caused the problem, but he had no choice once the rest started harming others with their power. Look at what you’ve done since you got loose.”

  Now Samuel stood. His thoughts slammed Jay back into his seat. “Vengeance for what was done to my siblings! Vengeance for what you and Sarkov were attempting to carry out on me, when I was taken from you!”

  Jay found that he couldn’t even speak. A weight had descended upon him, forbidding him from carrying the argument any further. Guilt held him fast and shut his mouth, not Samuel’s power. The boy had it right. Jay had known that the children were being killed, but in his mind there simply had been no choice.

  Finally, he spoke up again as Samuel calmed a little and took his seat. “What were we supposed to do, Samuel? How do you bargain with a psychotic superhuman? How do you restrain someone like you? Do you just let them run amok and kill people at will? Do you leave an unsuspecting city in jeopardy?”

  Samuel didn’t answer, although he seemed to be looking for an intelligent answer. “Sarkov never should have been allowed to bring us into the world like this in the first place. Just because he did, didn’t give you the right to exterminate us at your leisure.”

  Jay nodded. “That’s why I bought him out, Samuel. Only, the problem was already bigger than I knew. The others were already losing control, some of them dying just from the condition. Again, I ask you, what could we do?”

  Samuel gave Jay a hard look. “Maybe you should have tried to look for a way to help us, instead of your quick fix death sentence.”

  Jay didn’t answer. Jonathan did. “Samuel, things are what they are now, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow this course. You can choose to do something else…we all can.”

  “Who are you, anyway?” Samuel asked.

  “My name is Jonathan Hallowed. Thirty years ago I was Jay’s legal guardian, just trying to help him out.”

  Samuel snorted at him. “Thirty years ago? You don’t even look that old.”

  “I’ve just come out of cryogenic sleep.” Jonathan looked at Jay. “I was placed in that state thirty years ago because of a genetic mutagen I was exposed to. The same mutagen that created the creature you were fighting with.”

  He had Samuel’s full attention. “What was that thing?”

  Jonathan looked at Jay, then Samuel. “He calls himself Nemesis now, but he’s actually Dr. Trenton Hallowed. He created the mutagen, hoping to cause man to evolve into something more noble, more powerful. Instead, the drug turned him into a vicious killer. I was exposed to the mutagen in an accident and received enhanced strength and healing from it, but also a death sentence. My own hyper-metabolism is killing me.”

  Samuel nodded. He seemed to be more eager to listen to Jonathan now. “But you’re not like that creature at all.”

  “No. Trenton took the process much farther w
ith himself. I don’t even know if there’s any of the man I grew up with in him anymore. The point is this, Samuel. I can relate to how you’re feeling. My life has been taken away from me, but I’m not going to be bitter. I’m not going to take it out on everyone else. I have a choice, and so do you.”

  Samuel stared at him for a long moment. “That’s a great attitude, Jonathan, and you’re right, I do have a choice. I’m going to protect those like myself, and you two are going to take me to the girl now.”

  Jay started to rise from his seat again. “Now, wait a minute—”

  Samuel slammed Jonathan to the wall of the van with his mind, pressing upon him. Jay stopped. “What are you doing?”

  Samuel looked at Jay. “Since you owe your good fortune to Jonathan here, I suppose it wouldn’t be too much to ask that you end his suffering by doing as I’ve told you…take me to the girl.” Samuel pressed harder on Jonathan causing his nerves to transmit wave after wave of pain impulses to his brain. Jonathan screamed in uncontrolled agony.

  “Stop it, you’re killing him!” Jay pleaded.

  “No, not yet, Doctor…not for a long time, unless you do as I’ve said.” Samuel pressed again. Jonathan writhed against the van wall, blinding pain coursing through his entire body.

  Jay watched until he couldn’t stand it any longer. “All right, just stop torturing him!”

  The pain subsided, though Samuel still held Jonathan fast to the wall. “Then sit down, and start driving, Doctor.”

  Jay looked at Jonathan once more, then complied. He sat down and switched off the auto-pilot. Control returned to him. Jay accessed another sky lane. His mind worked frantically for a solution. Somehow, he had to keep Samuel away from Margot and still save Jonathan’s life.

  The police van received an access granted ping, and the sky-lane system computer pulled the transport safely from one lane to another. Jay looked back at Samuel. The boy glared at him. Jay seconded Samuel’s own thought—wishing this boy had never been born.

  15 TABLES TURN

  Ten minutes later, the sky lane deposited the police transport in front of the Willow Creek subdivision. Jay cruised through a neighborhood of fine homes, each sporting several acres of finely manicured lawn. On a few, robotic lawn maintenance systems hummed through their labor without care.

  At the far end of the main road, stood a home distinguishably larger than the others. Jay drove the police van up the cobblestone driveway terminating at a six car garage bay. He stopped and shut down the hybrid electric engine. Samuel peeked through the windshield toward the house. “Nice place, Doc. Nice to see how well murder pays off.”

  Jay started to protest, but took another look at Jonathan slumped on the bench, exhausted, and thought better of it. He might be made to pay for any remarks Jay made. Instead, he turned in his seat. “Now what? Am I just supposed to go in and bring her out to you?”

  Samuel stood up with a smile on his face and started to speak. The police van lurched, then flew up under their feet. All three men tumbled helplessly inside the metal cabin, banging off the walls, ceiling, and floor as the vehicle flipped across the driveway.

  •

  Nemesis stood, taking human form again as the police van tumbled several times. He laughed as the van caved in with each turn across the cobblestone drive. Nemesis turned back toward the large house. Time to get the girl they had been discussing inside the van. A plan was brewing on how he might make use of her and her untapped power.

  Nemesis remained long enough to see if anyone would climb out of the van. No one did, but he knew, at least, Jonathan would. Made of the same mutagenic stuff as himself, he would not die so easily.

  Nemesis turned and ran toward the house. He leaped over the porch steps and crashed through the front door, sending splintered wood flying in all directions. Almost immediately, a Taser weapon fired a scatter of pulsing prongs into his body. Though they possessed no trailing wires, the effect was the same. Electrical current surged through his body, nullifying the molecular bond of his cells. He burst apart, literally, at the seams.

  To Jay’s assistant, Lily, he had appeared to disintegrate before her eyes. She stood near the ornate circular staircase with the Taser in hand, waiting to see if it was really going to end as easy as that. She peered around the room, looking for any trace of the man who’d crashed through the door—the same she had just seen flip the police van from her window—only then, he had appeared as a black gelatinous creature.

  Nemesis gathered his molecular mass. He had not expected the current to have such an effect on him. He misted through the room and reformed behind the woman in his pitch black, humanoid form. She turned on him, with the gun in hand, firing point blank. He dodged aside quick.

  Nemesis smashed a black tentacle across her chest, sending her hurtling into the foyer. Lily collided with a decorative glass case. Shattered glass rained upon her as she skidded to a halt near the front door. Blood oozed to the surface of her skin from glass cuts all over her body, but she remained unconscious and still.

  Time to find the girl.

  Nemesis began his search in the few large rooms on the first floor—nothing. The girl would likely be upstairs, hiding in a closet or under a bed. He sprinted up the circular stair case to the landing and took on a normal human appearance. No use making this more traumatic than necessary. If the girl did have latent power, like Stokes had said, then she would certainly be more inclined to use them upon a pitch black monstrosity than a normal looking man.

  He advanced through different rooms on the second floor, then spotted a closet at the far end which had been cracked open. It was shut. Nemesis smiled as he walked toward the closet door in the dimly lit hallway. The doorknob rotated, and things in the closet shuffled around. “Hiding won’t do you any good, little girl.” He grabbed the doorknob, turned, and pulled it open. “Gotcha!”

  The closet was empty.

  Someone darted behind him toward the stairs—the girl. She had manipulated the closet with her mind. He realized she must have some understanding of her mental power already.

  Nemesis raced after her. As he reached the top of the circular staircase, he saw Margot already leaving the bottom step. He heard the sound of sirens approaching outside. More police. For his plan to work, he had to get the girl while she was away from the others.

  Nemesis leaped over the banister, opened pouches under his arms like a flying squirrel, then sailed down right on top of her. She screamed as he enveloped her in his black, gelatinous form. He muffled her scream, then went to work siphoning a part of himself away to infiltrate the girl’s body. He had to reach her brain if he ever hoped to join with her and control the power she wielded.

  •

  Jonathan had only begun to extricate himself from the mess in the van, when he heard sirens blaring all around. Jay sat up beside him, holding his head. “Man that hurts!”

  “Are you bleeding?” Jonathan asked.

  “I don’t think so. What happened?” Jonathan looked on the floor of the van where Samuel lay unconscious, then he looked out the windshield. Police Mechs were approaching Jay’s house fast, sirens screaming, and blue lights flashing. “Stokes couldn’t have done it, and the police just got here. My gut tells me Trenton has resurfaced.”

  Jay sat there listening. “Where is he then? Why hasn’t he finished us off?”

  They looked at each other simultaneously. “Margot?”

  Jonathan burst out of the back of the overturned police van, smashing the double doors out of his way. Jay followed hot on his trail. “Jonathan, don’t let him hurt her!”

  Jonathan needed no telling. Any daughter of Jay’s might as well have been his own. He sped up to the house, leaving Jay in his wake. “Stay back, Jay! Trenton will only kill you, too!”

  “Halt!” A Police Mech hovered over the driveway, landing with a hydraulic crash that cracked the paving stones. Jay did as he was told. The .50 caliber machine gun turret, aimed at him, made sure of that.

  �
�That thing has got my daughter!” Jay yelled.

  The officer fastened inside the mech robot looked toward the house. The kicked in door and splintered door jam were clearly in view. Five more Police Mechs joined the first on the lawn. More cars joined the heavy artillery, and officers began to spill out onto Jay’s property with their weapons drawn. Agent Wong got out of a police car and ran up to Jay, wanting to know the situation.

  Jay shook his hand, actually relieved to see the man. “We believe the Nemesis creature that broke out of Halo Tech’s cryo containment unit has my daughter and executive assistant held captive inside. My friend, Jonathan, has gone inside already.”

  Wong looked puzzled, searching the property with his eyes. “What about Stokes? Wasn’t he in the van with you?”

  At that moment, it occurred to Jay exactly why the police were here. They had followed a tracer on the van—it was their equipment after all. Wong hadn’t shown up with the cavalry for any other reason than he expected to get a hold on Samuel Stokes. “What happened to Stokes?” Wong asked again.

  Jay pointed to the wrecked police van. “He’s still in there, unconscious.”

  Agent Wong signaled to the Police Mech standing over them and spoke into his transmitter-receiver. “The van! Cover the van. Stokes is unconscious inside.”

  The manned robot moved away, focusing its machine gun on the flipped vehicle laying in Jay’s yard. The other police mechs did the same, while their fellow officers moved in to investigate the open rear doors.

  At that moment, a rush of wind flushed out of the police van. The approaching officers ducked for cover in the grass. The van cracked like an eggshell and peeled away as Samuel Stokes levitated into the air. The mech robots locked their machine guns on the boy, as he surveyed the scene around him.