Fire and Thunder

by Bowen Greenwood

  “Why, Drake? Why did you come unglued when you saw him in that coffee shop? Why do you hate Pitch so much?”

  “He’s a murderer.”

  The Tale of Hope and Drake

  Seven Months Ago

  Chapter 15 – Hope and Drake Part 1

  Drake’s fist drove like a hammer straight at the jaw of an AAA agent. The suit-clad man tried to slip to the side, but he was too late. The impact sent shivers from his wrist to his shoulder, and Drake shook his fist in pain. By then, the officer was already slouched against the wall, hovering on the border of consciousness. Beside him, he heard the thump of the other agent hitting the wall. Pitch telekinetically held the man in the air and thumped his head. He, too, slid down to the ground once Pitch no longer held him up.

  The two of them stepped back in unison, and Kila walked up to the cell door. Imperviously locked from the inside, from without, it opened at the simple twist of a handle. Her brown pony tail waved slightly as Kila put her weight into pushing it open. She entered first, but soon they could all see the new girl standing in the middle of the cell.

  Rumpled blankets hung off the edge of her bed. It looked like she had been napping and had risen to her feet quickly at the sound of the fight outside her cell. But the environment held Drake’s attention for only the briefest fraction of a second.

  Hair the color of wheat in the afternoon sun framed a face of soft angles and faint blushes. Clear, icy blue eyes met his and locked on, as if she could learn everything about him with a glance. The graceful curves of a young woman’s body made it hard for him to keep his eyes level.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Her voice breathed life into the air like a flute on a foggy morning. Drake wanted to answer her, but he had only just made a discovery: what men mean when they say they’re speechless. His tongue and vocal cords did not move when his brain sent the appropriate electrical impulses through his nervous system. Instead, his jaw hung comically open until Kila became the first to reply.

  “We’re here to rescue you.”

  “Rescue? What are you talking about? I’m here voluntarily. The federal government wants to understand… Well, they want to understand things better, and I’m helping them. How would you even know I was here? Why would you think I’d want rescuing? What happened to the men protecting me outside?”

  Kila looked over her shoulder at Sebastian, who elbowed Drake aside to walk in.

  “You’re not the only one with ‘Abnormal Abilities,’” he said. “I assume they’ve told you that phrase by now. All of us have them. Pitch is telekinetic. Drake here throws fire from his hands. I can become invisible. And Kila?”

  He paused and pointed to the girl in question, who blushed and looked down at her feet.

  “Kila can see the future. She’s how we knew you were here. She had a vision of this moment — of us coming through your door, so we came to get you free from the government.”

  The girl’s head tilted slightly to the side. Her hair caught the light, and Drake could not resist the urge to impress her. He held his hand palm up and let a grapefruit-sized ball of flame form there. It crackled and snapped for a moment before he clenched his fist and whisked it away.

  To his satisfaction, the new girl stared and then grinned. It was Drake she looked at when she next spoke, not Sebastian or Kila.

  “I wondered if I was the only one. I’m Hope, by the way. Hope Cameron. What’s your name?”

  Drake felt like every other boy in the room must be jealous that he was the one she introduced herself to first. “Drake Tesla,” he replied.

  “No, you’re not the only one,” Sebastian cut in. “There are quite a few of us. We’re forming a group of people who can do unusual things. We don’t really understand it yet, but so far the only ones we’ve found who can do things like this are between fifteen and twenty-five. Come with us. We want you to be a part of that.”

  The girl looked at him with pursed lips. “I don’t know. Those men from the government asked me to come here. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “You will if you stay here. Sooner or later, they’re going to get tired of just asking you questions. That’s when they put you through the Practical Application Test. And we’ve never yet met anyone who had a fun time with that.”

  Pitch spoke for the first time. “They left me pinned under a weight too heavy for an ordinary man to lift in order to make me lift it telekinetically.”

  Kila said, “They kept setting traps for me to walk into that really hurt, hoping I would start getting visions of them and avoiding them. It didn’t work until they brought in my family and started setting the traps for them.”

  Sebastian jumped back in. “You see? You’re here voluntarily now, maybe. But once the real testing starts, you won’t want to stay. And by then, it may be too late to leave.”

  “So you’re telling me we’re going to just leave? Without permission?”

  “That’s how all of us left here. Permission to leave never comes.”

  “It’s hard to believe that. I’ve always trusted the authorities. Police and teachers and scientists do a good job of helping people.”

  “These aren’t ordinary police and teachers. This is the AAA. I’m telling you, come with us now, or you’ll never get another chance. If you don’t like it, you can always come back here later.”

  The girl looked around her cell, and then took a few cautious steps toward the open door. Outside it, she saw the wingtips and slacks of one of the unconscious agents.

  “You attacked them? Did you kill them?”

  “They’re just unconscious. But that won’t last forever. There’s a time limit on your decision. You can stay here. and suffer through the tests they’re going to run. Or you can come with us. But you can’t take all day to make up your mind. We’re going to have to get out before those guys wake up.”

  ***

  From the nighttime raid to free a new comrade, Sebastian led them back to their nascent base. It wasn’t much: just a cave at the foot of a mountain where it merged into the Nevada desert. To the south, the lights of Las Vegas peeked over the horizon like a false dawn. To the east, the real dawn eased into the darkness and transformed it.

  They all worked together to push one of the kids’ Cessna into the mouth of the cave, and then stood around catching their breath from the effort. Even having pushed it several times, Drake still had trouble accepting the idea that a whole aircraft weighed little enough to be manually pushed. The owner explained that getting into the air required that it weigh very little. Drake still would never have believed it if not for the evidence of his own muscles.

  Only then did Sebastian turn to the new girl. “So what’s your power?”

  “I… Well, when I’m touching something with my hands, I can change one substance into another. Like water into wine.”

  She picked up a baseball-sized rock from the floor of the cave, and held it in her hand. A glowing line encircled the stone near the bottom and rose up until it disappeared after flowing up the whole thing. When the glowing line went away, what had once been granite was now bread. A light brown dinner roll, the same basic shape and size as the rock, sat in Hope’s hand.

  She put it to her mouth, bit it, and grinned as she chewed.

  Sebastian grinned back and nodded. “Good. But how come the entire floor doesn’t turn to bread every time you take a step?”

  “Two reasons. One, I’m not trying. Things don’t just transform immediately on contact with me anymore. They used to, when this first started happening. Now I can control it. Unless I will things to transform, they don’t. Second, it has to be my hands. I don’t know why. My feet, my head — those don’t transform substances, only my hands. And, of course, it doesn’t have to be bread.”

  “So, Hope, here’s why you’re here. Obviously, you noticed that you can do something most people can’t. Everyone here has noticed that. I can become invisible. Kila gets visions of the future. Spooky just knows the tru
th sometimes. And on and on. What usually happens is, a person discovers that something crazy happens around them — objects lifting randomly into the air, or suddenly people can’t see you, or for no reason you know that the couple you’re looking at is going to get divorced. At first, they keep their mouths shut when they notice this. Who wouldn’t, right? No one wants to be called crazy, and that’s exactly what everyone else would say. So we keep our mouths shut.

  “But that never lasts forever. Sooner or later, it happens often enough, or regularly enough, that you know you’re not crazy. And then you want to talk to someone about it. It’s only natural. So you ask someone. Or maybe this weird, crazy thing happens in front of other people. Or maybe your parents discover you doing it. Whatever it is, sooner or later other people know about it. And one of them, or some of them, tell the authorities.”

  “I told them myself,” Hope said. “I love my science classes at college. I wanted to know what was going on, and figure it out.”

  Annoyance at the interruption flickered on Sebastian’s face for a moment until he managed to nod. “Right, but the authorities found out. And then they brought you to that facility. When we came in, you were still being treated well. But that doesn’t last. Not long after getting people into their custody, the practical application tests start.”

  He paced back and forth as he spoke. Among the others present, some listened like it was their favorite song. Others tuned in politely. Drake mostly just looked at Hope while Sebastian gave the introductory speech.

  “That’s the reason we’re forming The Legion. None of us knows what’s happening. None of us knows why some teens and college students are developing powers. What we do know is this: It’s wrong to treat us as test subjects. The Legion is a rebellion. It’s a rejection of being told we’re only fit for experimentation. We are the people who have these powers, and we’re going to work out what it means for ourselves. We didn’t choose violence; the government did that. But now that violence is on the table we’re going to play that card. And since we’ve got the powers, we expect to be better at it than they are. This only ends when the people in authority who order practical application tests are replaced with people with powers. We have the power to change the government. We have the power to run the government. We have the powers. The Legion is about using those powers.”

  Drake had been staring dreamily at her through the whole speech, so he observed Hope’s agitation first. It gave him a bit of nervousness; Sebastian didn’t like public disagreement. There was no way to warn her about that, though.

  “I don’t agree with that outlook.”

  Sebastian’s speech screeched to a stop. Every eye in the room turned toward Hope. She backed up a step, clearly uncomfortable with all the attention, but she didn’t recant.

  “Look, these powers are brand new in the world. None of us knows what happened or why. Wanting to study it isn’t wrong. It’s a good thing. Science exists for this very reason. I’m glad the government is curious about powers. They should be. I’m glad they’re doing scientific experiments to understand it better. They should be. I wouldn’t be majoring in physics if I didn’t think scientific understanding was worthwhile. I want to study these powers and learn what’s going on. I don’t blame the government for wanting the same thing. Maybe you’re right and they go too far, but that’s no reason to reject the entire idea.”

  For a moment that seemed to stretch into an hour, no one said anything. Finally, Sebastian asked, “Are you sure you belong with us?”

  Hope blushed. Drake watched the way she shifted from foot to foot. His head split right down the middle — he was afraid to speak out on her behalf and draw down the same attention on himself that she was getting, but at the same time he wanted to be the one who defended her. He wanted her to see him on her side.

  He tried. “Maybe I should go show her the base…”

  Hope, though, spoke up at the same time. “When you guys came to get me out of the government testing facility, I chose to come because I saw living with a whole group of kids with powers as a great way to learn about it. That’s still true. I’m here to learn. But I’m not sold on the idea that it’s some kind of revolt against society.”

  “Fine,” Sebastian said. “You can stay here in the base while the rest of us go on missions. You won’t have to fight your precious government. Your power’s really only good for making bread anyway. Won’t do much in a fight.”

  Chapter 16 – Hope and Drake Part 2

  Once a mere hole in the side of a cliff, the Legion’s base gradually became more elaborate. Pitch worked on it telekinetically every day, carving it into something grander. With his mind, he could lift stones far too heavy for any of them. Under his careful sculpting, the cave now had separate rooms for each of them, a common area, and more. He happily described the future where Hope’s power to transform one substance into another would help him change the discarded stone into marble floors, wood-paneled walls – a luxury palace in the desert. So far, though, he kept busy with the preliminary digging and hadn’t asked Hope for any help at all.

  Today, she paced her newly-dug “room.” She wore the black fatigues the Legion gave her, but instead of the usual uniform top, she wore a black tank top. She’d borrowed it from Kila. The Legion’s fighters — called Enforcers — wore tank tops as their uniform. The rest of the kids wore ordinary army fatigue shirts, except black instead of green.

  “How’d you get the Enforcer uniform? Did you go ask Sebastian in advance?”

  She snorted. “Him? I wouldn’t ask him the time of day. I don’t need permission from him to work out; I’ve been doing it for years. I borrowed this from Kila.”

  Drake stood in her cave with her, watching her pace. He had never thought of the shoulders as a particularly noteworthy part of the body before, but hers curved gently and her skin glowed over the gentle rise of muscles under them. He found himself embarrassed for staring.

  “Are you sure it was a good idea to ask Kila? She’s pretty loyal to Sebastian.”

  “Well, it’s not going to stay secret from him. In a couple of minutes we’re going out there, and he’ll know I want to learn to be an Enforcer. So even if Kila tells him, he won’t be learning anything we’re not about to show him.

  “Besides,” she added, “I have hope for Kila. At heart, she’s a nice person. We can’t save the Legion if we don’t start taking risks on a few people, Drake.”

  With that, she walked out of her room to go join the Enforcers for Chojin Ken practice. Drake hesitated for a moment that seemed to stretch longer and longer. She turned back to smile at him encouragingly, until finally he followed her to practice.

  They walked out into the desert. At six in the morning, the sun had barely come up and the temperature wasn’t yet overwhelming. Behind them, the mountains climbed for the dark predawn sky. In front of them, rough dirt and bare rock stretched as far as they could see. Sebastian stood in front of a line of people in black cargo pants and tank tops.

  As Drake and Hope walked out, Sebastian turned to look at them. A frown spread across his face.

  He called from his position standing in front of the other Legion members, “Why’d you bring her, Drake?”

  Drake stopped where he stood. He looked at Sebastian, then back at Hope.

  “Well, Sebastian, she told me she wanted to learn this…”

  Sebastian cut him off. “No. Chojin Ken is only for people with combat powers. Hope’s not like you. She can’t throw fire or lift rocks like Pitch. She just changes things into other things. It’s not very useful in a fight.”

  Drake’s face felt hot. His cheeks flushed red. “Hey! Wait—”

  Her hand touched his shoulder. He looked back to see her cheeks an angry red and her lips pressed into a tight line. “Never mind, Drake” rushed out of her mouth before she spun on her heel to stalk away.

  ***

  “I talked to Spooky and Kila for a while this morning after…”

  She stoppe
d in mid-sentence and couldn’t find a good way to finish it. Drake rescued her.

  “I wondered where you were. I was worried about you.”

  She tried to throw him a smile but the anger from that morning got in her way. “Thank you, but… Well, anyway, I wandered around for a while and eventually found those two when they were done with your practice. They’re kind of weird the way they finish each other’s sentences. I’ve seen best friends like that before, but these two? When one knows the truth about what the other is going to say, and the other sees visions of her friend speaking in the future, it gets a little out of control. Kila can hold a whole conversation with Spooky where she speaks both side’s words. On the other hand, though, they put up with me punching walls and swearing.”

  Drake’s eyes went a little wide. “Punching walls? Hope, we live in a cave. The walls are made of rock.”

  A wicked grin flashed across her face for a second. “Not when you can change one substance into another they aren’t. Sebastian thinks I can’t fight? Well, I beat the heck out of a rubber section of the wall outside Kila’s room.

  Drake chuckled. “Yeah, nothing helps with anger quite like punching something.”

  “And someone to talk to. I was grateful to the girls for listening.”

  “I get along OK with Kila, but Spooky’s a little hard to take,” Drake replied. “Kila never pushes her gift on you, but Spooky just blurts out what she knows about you whenever it comes into her head. It’s weird they’re such good friends because their personalities differ. Quite a bit.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Get along with her, huh? Do you like her?”

  “What? No! Hope, I… I…” There was a natural end to that sentence, and Drake wanted to push it past his lips so bad it hurt, but fear pinched off the flow of air to his vocal cords. What if she said no?

  Instead, she nodded with satisfaction. Drake admired the way her light hair swayed back and forth with the motion of her head.