Connor kicked him in the groin, and then dropped a hammer fist onto his back. The combination put him on the ground, vomiting.
Connor set the gun down on the ground, too far away for the soldier to reach, and ran toward the chaotic pile of building and armored vehicle he had been originally hoping to use for cover.
Before he reached it, Sebastian materialized barely in front of him.
Connor shouted in panic and nearly jumped a foot off the ground. Sebastian laughed at him.
“Invisibility is fun,” he said.
Connor just panted, trying to catch his breath.
“You scared the daylights out of me,” he said.
Sebastian grinned and said, “I know. Nice work with that guy who was holding a gun on you. I wasn’t sure if Linc was serious about you two being black belts. I guess he was.”
Connor said, “Thanks, but I only did what I had to do to save… wait. You watched the whole thing? I could have used a hand.”
“You didn’t need it,” Sebastian replied. “Anyway, the fight’s almost over. Come on, let’s head for that C-130.”
The black haired boy with the pony tail, who wore the Legion’s trademark black fatigues, sat in the cockpit. In addition to being a Healer, he had apparently earned his pilot’s license back in the normal world, before he had fallen in with Sebastian. All of which explained why he went by Wings, even though it didn’t really match his ability of healing. Wings dispensed with the normally-required checklist and started the engines. The C-130 was an aircraft designed to fly very low to evade enemy radar, and the Legion took advantage of that ability.
Connor turned to Sebastian and said, “It doesn’t seem like this is really going to work that well. I mean, this is Area 51. They’ve got to have radars and stuff to track aircraft.”
Sebastian gave him a wicked grin. “They do. Or I should say they did. Pitch dropped a tank on their entire antenna farm. Good luck to them with trying to track us.”
They disappeared into the desert.
CHAPTER SIX
The Legion’s home began as a cave. It was high in the desert mountains along the border between California and Nevada. It had become much more than that since Sebastian and his band had moved in.
They landed the plane outside the cave mouth. The C-130 was designed for rough-field landings and putting it down on the flat desert before the mountains seemed to give Wings no trouble. Once they were down, most members of the Legion went in. Others came out and began pushing the plane toward a hiding place.
Pitch beckoned Connor and Linc to follow him toward the far back of the cave. Marveling at the smooth walls and electric lighting, they gawked as they walked behind him.
Doors led off the main tunnel at somewhat regular intervals. Pitch kept walking until he passed the last door. About twenty feet from there, the tunnel ended in a blank stone wall.
Before their eyes, a massive stone pried itself loose from that back wall and floated through the air to land with a thud behind them.
Linc exclaimed, “What the–”
Pitch just grinned. “I built this whole place, basically. I’ve been with Sebastian from the beginning. I accidentally met him while I was escaping from government captivity, just like you guys. We needed a place to hole up, and I knew this cave, so I brought us here. I’ve been working on it ever since. I just move the stones with my mind and make the tunnel longer, or dig side-chambers, or whatever we need. We've got one open room already that one of you can use. Give me a couple hours and I’ll have a new room for the other.”
Linc stared at him. “Man, I’d love to have you on my side in a fight!”
Pitch laughed. “You just did. Anyways, you guys go chat with the others or whatever. Let me work for a bit. I just wanted to show you how your rooms are going to be made. I like to show off.”
With that, another massive rock pulled loose from the wall of the tunnel. Linc and Connor backed away, careful to stay out of the path as Pitch set it down.
Wandering the Legion’s headquarters gave both of them many opportunities for awe. They met other young men and women besides Sebastian who could turn invisible. There were several who could walk through walls. There was one girl who, when Linc asked what her power was, smiled and touched the floor of the cave, from which a rose bush then grew up in less than a minute.
“Pitch hates it when I do that,” she said, laughing. “He has to get help to transform stone into marble and repair the floor.”
They passed several members of the Legion who were wearing black fatigue pants and, in a change from the rest of the Legion, black tank tops. They were pacing up and down the corridors and looking very serious about it, so Linc and Connor left them alone.
The cave had extensive athletic facilities, including a full swimming pool, which one girl was using to practice walking on water. She didn’t seem to like being bothered, so Connor and Linc wandered back out to the main cave.
On their way back to the common area, they passed through one wing that appeared to have Legionnaires’ personal quarters in it. The lamps lining the hallway were turned down low in case people were trying to sleep, and conversations were kept to whispers. Some of the doors had decorations that reflected the residents’ personalities.
One door had a hand-drawn sign that said, “Enforcers Rule!” Neither Linc nor Connor had any idea what it meant. They continued their exploration.
They turned one corner and found two girls in the middle of a whispered conversation. One had very light brown hair and a long thin nose. The other had black hair that was cut like a boy’s. The brown-haired one was in the middle of speaking when they turned the corner.
“…I’m afraid I might not be able to do it anymore. I might never be able to do it again.”
“That’s crazy,” replied black-hair. “Powers don’t just go away.”
“Yeah but for the last day or two—”
The brown-haired girl cut off in mid word when the black-haired one said, “We have an audience.”
Connor found it pretty surprising that she said that, given that her back was turned to them.
The brown-haired girl looked up, saw Connor, and her mouth fell open like a pickup truck’s tailgate. She stared at him for a second, then spun around and walked away down the hall in the opposite direction.
The black-haired girl said, “Nosy!”
Then she opened the door she was standing beside and went back in.
Connor shrugged at Linc, who shrugged back. They kept up their exploration of the Legion’s cave.
They found Sebastian as he was making the rounds among the different rooms in the base, checking in on the members of the Legion as they went to bed. He showed them the vacant room Pitch had mentioned. In it there was a cot and a bare electric light. Once they were in, Sebastian left.
Connor’s eyes felt heavy. He eased himself down to rest against the wall, leaving the bunk for his friend. The day’s adventures had been above and beyond anything he’d ever experienced in life before, and he was exhausted, but Linc still wanted to talk.
“These guys are awesome, man! Can you believe it? People turn invisible, they move huge rocks with their minds… this is sweet!”
Linc went on, “Know what superhuman ability I’d like to have, man? Speed. Superhuman speed. Just think of all that sparring you and I did back in the dojo. You wouldn’t win so much if my punches moved ten times as fast.”
Connor did indeed remember all those practice fights. He and Linc had been sparring together for years. Each knew the other’s fighting style very well. Connor knew Linc was left-handed and favored that side for his strikes. He knew Linc tired after about three minutes. Remembering the dojo was a happy place for him, unlike his current predicament.
Connor shrugged and said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t be so quick to wish for this. So far even the idea that I might have impenetrable skin has done nothing but mess my life up.”
Linc replied, “Dude, it all worked out. Sebas
tian totally killed it getting us out of Area 51 and now we’re part of something awesome! You heard Sebastian. The Legion’s going to change the whole world! With powers like these, who wouldn’t? You saw Pitch in action. They can take on an army. Any time someone gets wounded, healers just get them back up. Meanwhile Sebastian’s going invisible on them, sneaking around the back, and messing all their stuff up… Con, we have it pretty good right now.”
Connor sighed. “I’m just not sure I fit in here.”
“What are you talking about, bro? Your skin is like steel–”
Connor cut him off with a yawn. “I wish you’d stop saying that.”
Linc shook his head. “Listen, man. I heard what you said earlier, and I get it. I’ve never had someone expect me to just stand in front of a bullet, so I’d probably be scared, too. But you have to remember that it’s real man. I saw it happen in the convenience store. Your leather jacket has three holes all the way through it man. But the bullets that punched those holes didn’t break the skin on you. I’m not making light of what you said, and I’m not trying to be a jerk, but haven’t you seen enough to believe it yet?”
His eyes half closed, Connor thought of the auburn-haired girl who had healed the soldier. But he didn’t want to give away her secret, so instead he said, said, “Yeah, I’ve seen Sebastian be invisible. I’ve seen Pitch move huge stones with his mind, clearing us a place to live. But that’s different. Their lives weren’t at risk when they had to do it.”
Linc nodded. “That’s what you said before, man, but you need to get over that. I want to be a part of this team. Ain’t nobody going to bully the Legion, man. Ain’t nobody going to treat these guys like second class citizens. They have power. They have real power, the kind that can change the whole world. You heard what Sebastian said about running things. I want in. And I don’t have any powers of my own, man. You’re my ticket in here. This is where I belong, but I can’t stay here without you.”
Connor was too tired to argue. It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t out of disrespect for his old friend. But he had been arrested, interrogated, tested, and almost shot – two separate times – in less than one day. He was snoring long before Lincoln finished talking.
***
The next morning, Pitch came and woke them both up. Connor had curled into a ball against the rock wall to sleep, and his back really hurt as he straightened out to stand up.
Pitch said, “I should have come and let you into your new room, Connor, but you were snoring like a Harley’s pipes when I checked, and I just couldn’t bring myself to wake you up.”
“No worries man,” Connor replied with a groan. “But where do we get some food around here?”
Pitch grinned. “Wait ‘til you see the Legion mess hall, man. We got this guy who was in culinary school to be a chef before he discovered that he had the ability to change one form of matter into another. He’s super useful. All that stone I moved to make a room for you last night Connor? It’s now wood for a door and a bunk. Guy’s awesome.”
“But more to the point, he also takes care of the food here. And you are in for a treat.”
He tossed one bundle of black clothing at Connor and one to Linc.
“Got you guys your uniforms,” he said. “You’re official members of the Legion now. Get dressed and let’s go get some chow!”
They put on their black fatigues and then Connor and Linc followed Pitch to the mess hall. Once the twin doors opened, they simply stared. There were thick oak tables like something out of a medieval fantasy movie and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Although the room had obviously been cleared out of the same granite as the rest of the Legion’s base, the walls looked like the wood paneling of a fancy club, and the floor looked like marble.
Pitch wasn’t exaggerating about the food. At the front of the hall was a serving table with heaping trays of bacon, sausage, eggs, fruit, and more.
Connor attacked it with gusto, and Lincoln wasn’t far behind.
Pitch laughed at their heaping plates of food as he led them to a seat. The three of them pulled up chairs in the middle of some other boys and girls, and Connor dug in.
Pitch let him get through one mouthful before he started the introductions. He pointed out everyone at their table.
Heaps was a girl who could multiply things. If you showed her one egg, she would give you back a dozen. She helped with the breakfast.
Terp was short for Interpreter. He could speak any language he decided to speak. In the manner of most teenage boys studying foreign languages, he proceeded to cuss for them in German, French, and Italian.
There was another college freshman like Connor and Linc who just went by Kila – the name she was born with. She could tell the future. She was pretty, and Connor wanted to like her, but she was also the light-brown-haired girl from the hallway last night. She was the one who ran the other way at the sight of him. Now she frowned and looked away from him when he tried to make eye contact.
Connor tried to be polite and acknowledge everyone as they were being introduced, but it was hard since his fork was usually full of eggs and cheese.
The other people didn’t seem to mind much, since they were just as intent on their food. Pitch made the standard joke about how there was going to be a test afterwards and got a few courtesy laughs, but Connor was focused on job one. He hadn’t had a proper meal since he and Linc had left their dorm room yesterday, and he was making short work of a huge pile of various forms of grease.
Just as he was pondering the question of seconds, Sebastian strode into the mess hall. He walked up to a raised dais at the front of the room and stood behind a podium. The room went quiet almost instantly.
“Legion!” he shouted.
As one, the room shouted back, “Legion!”
By the time Connor figured out what to yell, it was too late. Sebastian launched into a speech.
“We rocked yesterday! We took on the government right in their stronghold, and we came back with three or four new members.”
A cheer went up from the room.
“What’s more, for the first time, our Enforcers took on soldiers directly and won. We’re becoming a real army!”
More cheers. Connor thought back to the sign he had seen last night: “Enforcers Rule!” Now he had some idea what it meant.
“And the Enforcers are going to be front and center for the foreseeable future,” Sebastian said. “Make no mistake; we’re at war. We aren’t the ones who started it. We aren’t the ones who started rounding people up and subjecting them to ‘practical application tests.’ But we’re the ones who are going to win it.”
“The pattern continued in our raid last night. Only one person over twenty and most younger. So far, almost all the people we’ve found with special abilities have been young. The government doesn’t think we’re able to make decisions for ourselves. They think we need them to help us decide how to deal with these powers. Well I say it’s the other way around: we should be making decisions for them!”
More cheers from the audience.
“You all know the goal. These powers can make the world a better place. Wouldn’t crime go down if people like me, who can be invisible, had the authority of the police? Criminals would never know when they were being watched. Wouldn’t wars and economic disasters be reduced if people who can tell the future were calling the shots about the economy? We can change the world!”
This time, the cheers lasted more than a minute. Sebastian had to wave his arms for quiet before people finally let him finish.
“That goal is closer after yesterday. It will be even closer tomorrow. Assignments are posted on the board. Check them out and do your duty. I hope to have even more Legionnaires here tomorrow morning, if we all do our jobs.”
Everyone clapped, and Connor moved his hands in that general fashion to fit in but inside his questions kept getting bigger. “Better suited for deciding how things should be?” He didn’t feel like that was true at all.
; CHAPTER SEVEN
The more time Connor spent with Sebastian and the Legion, the surer he became that he had made the wrong choice yet again; wrong to leave the scene of the crime, wrong to turn away Anna Wales and Ethan Moses, and wrong to come with this group. All this talk of running things and deciding how things should be did not sound good at all.
Still at the breakfast table, he leaned over to Pitch and asked a question.
“Assignments are posted on the board? What’s up with that?”
Pitch levered his bulk awkwardly away from the table. Connor followed suit.
Pitch said, “The Legion’s main job is recruiting right now. There’s going to be a moment when we reveal ourselves to the world and show the ordinary people the path to the future, but we want as many Legionnaires as possible before that happens. So most days, most of the Legion is out finding new people who have these powers.”
“How do you know where to look?”
“Kila helps a lot with that.” She gave them a dirty look when she heard her name. “A lot of times she gets a flash of the future, and it’s just a picture of a legion member in a particular place in the world, making a pitch to someone about their abilities. We have other members with powers that are similar to hers. They all work together, and tell Sebastian when they’ve got something. Then Sebastian assigns people based on that information.”
He concluded, “Come on, I’ll show you the board.”
Connor followed Pitch, and Linc followed Connor. Together, the three joined the throng that was heading out of the mess hall and toward the big common area near the center of the cave.
As he had last night when exploring, Connor again noticed some Legionnaires who wore black form-fitting tank tops instead of the full fatigues that everyone else wore. They seemed to patrol the halls at regular intervals as everyone left the mess hall.
Sebastian turned to Pitch to ask him about them, and it was only then that it occurred to him: Pitch was wearing the tank top, too. It wasn’t as flattering to his bulky form as it was to some of the others.
Sons of Thunder Page 5
