Fear Power

by C. C. Bolick

Travis opened the glass door. Three agents jumped out of our way as he led me to a door near the back of the store. Inside was a small office. On the metal desk sat a surveillance system with an ancient monitor that rotated through the views of five cameras. A layer of invoices sat next to the monitor, all thrown on the desk with no consideration of where each landed. Some part of me wanted to grab the stack and line up each page with the edge of the desk.

  I shoved my hands into my pockets. “This must be some kind of test. The agency is trying to find out if I’m ready—”

  Travis put his hands on my shoulders. “This isn’t a test. It’s a disaster about to happen if you don’t get yourself together and find your power.”

  Nodding, I couldn’t break his stare. “How can I disarm two bombs at the same time?”

  He looked over my shoulder at Rachelle. “You can’t. Rachelle will use her power to freeze the detonator of this bomb.”

  I tried to pull away as I thought back to a school report I wrote about nuclear bombs. “Freeze the…” Could it work? She couldn’t stop the nuclear reaction, but maybe by freezing the mechanical parts, the bomb wouldn’t be able to detonate. No detonation, no explosion. “If you freeze the detonator then the bomb won’t explode.”

  Travis nodded. “After Rachelle freezes this bomb, I’ll teleport you to the second bomb. You’ll disarm it and then return to finish this one.”

  “Sounds simple enough,” Angel said, forcing herself between us. Reluctantly, Travis released me. “Where is the bomb?”

  “Inside that monster.” He pointed to the monitor. “The owner bought this security system cheap. He had no idea the picture tube came with a bonus nuclear bomb.”

  “Talk about a steal of a deal,” Rachelle said dryly. She flexed her fingers and ice began to form in the cup of coffee next to the keyboard. “Let’s get this started.”

  “Can you control your power?” I asked.

  “If I can control my fear,” she said. “Like you, my fear is related to my power. When I feel fear and can’t control my power, the temperature drops around me. If I have control, I can focus.”

  “Fear is tricky.” Angel closed her eyes and I felt her mind brush against mine. “None of this is translating to fear, Rena. You need to focus. If you can’t feel fear…”

  Rachelle smiled. “You don’t have to check me, Angel. The air is cold enough you know I’m scared.”

  She might be scared, but the humor in her voice reminded me of Phoebe. Would I ever see my friend again? I caught Rachelle’s hand in mine. Surprisingly, it still felt warm. “Why did you make the air outside cold?”

  “I got some bad news from home. My dad had a stroke and my mom took time off from the agency to be with him.”

  “Your mom works for the agency?”

  “No surprise there.” Leaning forward, Rachelle put both hands on the monitor and the screen flashed and went black. A puff of white smoke escaped through the vents on the back. “I suggest you guys get going before the entire room turns into a Popsicle.”

  Before I could argue, Travis grabbed my arm and teleported me to the inside of a room with a ceiling several stories above my head. Around us, boxes rose to the ceiling, stopping below a network of metal pipes labeled ‘chilled water supply’ and ‘hot water supply.’ Where the walls met the roof, a line of small windows glowed with the last sunlight of the day.

  I shivered. How could this room be colder than the gas station? “Where are we?”

  Travis pulled out his gun and took a look around the room. His phone buzzed and he checked the screen. “We’re at the edge of town in a warehouse. According to GPS, the second bomb is somewhere in this room.” He grabbed my arm with his other gloved hand and dragged me to the end of an aisle between two rows of boxes. “We’re getting closer.”

  I followed as Travis ran between another row of boxes. The light from the sun was fading, which appeared to be the only light within the room. Long shadows fell across the floor. I tripped on a raised section of concrete and Travis caught me before I hit the floor.

  “Are you ready to stop this bomb, Rena? I’m serious. You know this is crunch time.”

  “I’ll try.” I closed my eyes and tried to think of anything that scared me. Shouldn’t the thought of getting blown up be enough? I didn’t fear Louis before because Travis was always there to save me. But this time… What if Travis couldn’t save me from the bomb? What if my friends were hurt or innocent people took the fall for my mistakes?

  He gripped my hands. “Rena, calm down and focus.”

  “What if I can’t do this?”

  “Rena—”

  “No, Travis. What if I can’t make—”

  “You are.” Travis pried my hands open.

  I looked down as blue sparkled along my palms. “Have you found it?” My voice shook as my hands lit the room around us.

  His face glowed from the pulsating blue. “I knew you could do it.” Travis pulled my arm until we found an aisle with a box at the center. On the box was a device about the size of a cell phone with flashing yellow and red lights. “This must be it.”

  “They put it here for us to find?” I asked.

  “The point of this wasn’t to hide the bomb.”

  “Then what was the point?” I glanced at the boxes around us. “Where is Louis?”

  “Disarm it,” Travis said, “before you lose your cool.”

  “Something isn’t right.” My heart began to race. Waves of fear slammed into me like a hurricane that once tore through the Florida town where I grew up. It was the only time Dad insisted we find a safer place to sleep than the camper.

  “You’re right to worry,” said a voice from the darkness. A woman’s voice. “Louis wanted to see your skills at work.”

  Travis held his gun out and spun around, keeping me behind him. “He’s recording us? What do you want?”

  The only sound was a gentle scraping of shoes along the concrete. As the sound approached, a familiar smell reached my nose. Cocoa butter. The sweetness reminded me of the lotion Mama always used. The blue in my palms faded.

  “No,” Travis yelled.

  “We’re better off in the darkness,” the woman said. “But I disabled the camera on this bomb just in case. The other is still live.”

  I breathed in the damp air. Travis stood close; his heavy breathing tickled my ear. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “The same thing Louis wants,” she said. “To see her power in action.”

  “Do you work for him?” I asked.

  The air was silent for a long moment. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?” Travis asked. “From the sound of your voice, I don’t think you do.”

  “Your tactics won’t work on me, Agent Payne.” She chuckled. “I know your training better than most.”

  I reached toward the sound of her voice. “You worked for the agency?”

  “A long time ago.”

  Her voice sounded closer this time, as if she stood only feet away. I held up my palms and focused on my fear of running out of time. Blue began to glow, illuminating the room around us. A woman stood where I expected, taller than me with wide-rimmed glasses that made her eyes seem far too huge for her tiny face. Dark hair curved around her face and stopped at her earlobes. My heart sank. After smelling the lotion, I’d expected a face that reminded me of Mama.

  “Finish your job,” she said.

  Travis pointed the gun at her. “Don’t move. Rena, disarm the bomb and we’ll get out of here.”

  I thought of the night when I disarmed five of Louis’s bombs. I closed my eyes and focused on the atoms, picturing each until I could see the neutrons waiting for my command. Each particle felt as real as it did six weeks ago. The spectrum of colors brought tears to my eyes. My palms tingled as blue sparkles rose and surrounded the device. I imagined the flashing lights slowed until they winked at me no more. Travis’s voice stretched to infinity as I gave the first neutron a gentle nudge. It collided with another atom and so
the chain reaction began. I shoved away every thought as I relished the beauty of the nuclear reaction.

  Despite the world moving in slow motion around me, I heard a voice loud and clear. “Your time is up, Regina. You’ve got to go.”

  Just as I’d started the explosion, I brought it to a halt in less than a second. My eyes opened and time restarted. What was left of the device disintegrated into a pile of black dust. I stared at the woman who hadn’t moved. The blue faded from my palms and I struggled to grasp the fear that could keep the room illuminated. How had this woman reached into my thoughts?

  “You’ve got it,” Travis said with relief. “Let’s go.”

  “Go, Regina,” the woman said, her face fading with the blue. “You’ve still got one more.”

  Before I could argue, Travis grabbed my arm and we stood in the office at the gas station. The world around me seemed to stop again, this time brought to a halt by the bitter cold.

  “Hurry.” His breath turned white and froze in the air. The cold froze his joints as it was quickly numbing mine. “Don’t breathe; just stop the bomb.”

  I turned to where Rachelle held her hands on the monitor. She was the only one left in the room. Her body was still and her eyes closed. Despite the cold, I pictured the atoms and each neutron as before. She’d frozen the detonator, but no level of cold would stop a nuclear reaction.

  As before, I closed my eyes and nudged a neutron into motion, which began the chain reaction. I wasted no time in bringing the energy to a scorching level, enough to melt any ice around me, and then toasted the monitor as I had the device at the warehouse.

  When I opened my eyes, Rachelle looked on in shock. “That was amazing,” she said. “I felt the heat. Does that mean we were radiated?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I contained the explosion.”

  Travis pulled me into a hug while making sure the skin of our necks and faces didn’t touch. “That was great. You controlled your power.”

  A woman cleared her throat and we split apart. I spun to see Agent Dallas in the doorway.

  “Now that’s what I call power, Miss Mason. Congratulations.” She turned to Rachelle. “Any chance we might get some warmer weather now?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “What happened to thank you? Her power helped me stop the bomb.”

  “And it has also crippled this city on more than one occasion.”

  Rachelle rolled her eyes. “That’s not my fault.”

  “It is your fault,” Agent Dallas said. “If you can’t control your power, you’ve got no right to be a part of our team. What if I put your mother on permanent leave until you get yourself together?”

  “You’re nothing more than a bully,” I said. “I hate bullies.”

  “I’m out of here,” Rachelle said. “If I never see this agency again, it will be too soon.”

  Agent Dallas stepped aside for Rachelle to leave the room. Her glare shifted to Travis. “That wasn’t professional behavior, Agent Payne. I think you need to take the workplace harassment training module again.”

  He groaned. “You know this didn’t mean anything. Helping her is part of my job.”

  I looked up at him. “Is that all I am to you? A job?”

  Travis cut his eyes to the far wall. “You know this agency is my life, Miss Mason. We’ve talked about this before. Whatever it takes to keep the world safe.”

  Agent Dallas smiled at me. Maybe I’d let her win this battle. “Your father is outside the station. Don’t keep Agent Mason waiting.”

  I nodded and left the room. Outside the office stood Angel and Skip. Rachelle didn’t bother to stop and talk to either. She slammed the door open and stomped into the parking lot. In seconds, the room went from feeling like a fridge to an oven.

  Skip wiped beads of sweat from his face. “Don’t let Agent Dallas get you worked up.”

  “She was mean to Rachelle,” I said.

  “She made Rachelle angry and now the polar ice caps will probably melt.” Angel glanced toward the office. “Agent Dallas knows how to play all of us. The scary thing is how well she does her job.”

  With a deep breath, I walked out into the night. Strange that the temperature had risen after the sun set. This had to be a new record. Despite my anger toward Agent Dallas, I knew Angel was right. Like I knew Travis had looked away to protect me.

  Dad approached and pulled me into a hug. “Great job. I’m proud of you.” He stepped back to look over me. “Your mother always felt wiped out after using her power. Maybe you should spend a night on the med-level.”

  I opened my mouth, determined to tell him about the woman from the warehouse. She’d called me Regina, like Mama would, and claimed to be a former agent. “Do you remember the lotion Mama used to wear?”

  He gave me a look of confusion. “The cocoa butter? She swore it made her skin look ten years younger. Why are you asking?”

  “I smelled some earlier.” Surrounded by people in black suits and bullet-proof vests, I wondered if this was the best time to tell him about her calling me Regina. Maybe Louis had set up the meeting to confuse me. Travis could make a report on the entire incident and I wouldn’t have to see the pain in Dad’s eyes. “I’ll pass on the med-level. I’d rather sleep in my own bed.”

  “Sounds like something she would say.” He smiled before rejoining a group of agents.

  As I spun and looked over the crowd of agents canvassing the gas station and surrounding businesses, I’d never felt more alone.

  And I’d never missed Mama more.

  Chapter Three

  I woke in a cold sweat and sat up on the bed. A picture of Mama flashed through my head. We were at the lake on a morning with no clouds in the blue sky. Sunlight warmed my skin and I smelled the lotion that made me feel at home. Wherever Mama was would always be home. She sat on a bench holding a loaf of bread while I fed ducks that made a circle around me. They moved closer with each piece of bread I tossed their way. Like me, they were fearless.

  “Regina,” she said.

  But it wasn’t her voice I heard.

  The woman from the warehouse called my name again. “Regina.”

  I glanced at the bench and Mama was gone, replaced by the woman with short black hair. Huge eyes glared at me through thick lenses. She sat unmoving, watching as if formulating a plan. Louis’s plan. I thought of the man who might be my father and cried out. At my feet, the ducks disappeared and the sun dipped behind a dark cloud. The lake stretched before me like a sheet of glass no one dared to break. She held up the loaf of bread, which poured from holes in the bag like sand.

  “You’re not my mother,” I screamed as the dream faded.

  The air chilled my skin and I rubbed my arms. The darkness felt cold and damp as it had in the warehouse. Only the smell of cocoa butter was missing. I turned on the lamp next to my bed, which cast shadows around the room. The full-sized bed was comfortable, though some part of me missed sleeping on the top bunk of the camper.

  My living space now consisted of a bedroom, bathroom, and living room with a small kitchen. Dad’s space was across the hall with the same layout including a larger sofa where Alfie slept. This bedroom alone felt larger than our entire camper.

  The longing for my bunk above Alfie made no sense. I’d wanted out of that town.

  I’d wanted a new life and now I had it. Money no longer mattered. Dad no longer drank. My power could make a difference in the lives of other people.

  My world should have felt perfect.

  Something about the woman still bothered me. Why had she approached us in the warehouse and said she turned off Louis’s camera? What did she gain by talking to me or Travis? Maybe she left the agency on bad terms and wanted to return. She had to know the agency wouldn’t take her back after helping Louis.

  Or would they? It was hard to tell who worked for who. Just when I thought I had the other agents figured out, I found another level of secrecy within the ranks of Earth Under Fire. Only one person knew ev
erything that went on in these underground rooms—Sylvia Greene. She had my vote for most unlikely to tell me anything.

  I glanced at the clock next to my bed. Three-thirty. Since I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep, I changed out of my flannel pajamas and into a pair of black jeans and a yellow t-shirt Travis brought me after my first week at the base. It had the outline of Pac-man on the front.

  The hall outside was empty. I stepped out and closed my door, careful not to wake Dad. I didn’t need questions about why I’d want to walk empty halls at three in the morning. When I reached the elevator, the doors opened to reveal Angel inside.

  Most agents avoided any chance for Angel to stand close enough to touch them. People whispered about her ability to kill with a single bite from her fangs. I’d once asked Travis about the rumors, but he insisted Angel would never harm me. Not a denial exactly.

  Good thing I didn’t fear her.

  She waved me into the elevator. “You’re up early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” The doors closed and I watched my reflection in the stainless panels as the floors counted down. “You?”

  “This is the best time of the morning to take a walk. Everyone who fears me is still in bed for another hour.”

  “You get up this early every morning?”

  She sighed. “My body doesn’t need as much sleep as a normal person. Two hours is usually enough to keep me going all day.”

  “Does it bother Skip?”

  “I’ve never asked him. Skip seems more worried about keeping me happy than asking about my powers. Some things he might not want to know.”

  “Can I join you?”

  She hesitated. “I’m meeting someone. I’m not sure…”

  “A top secret meeting?” I groaned. “Do agents ever stop working?”

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Angel stepped into the hall. “You can join me, but don’t tell Travis yet.”

  “About your top-secret meeting?”

  “It’s not top secret. He just doesn’t get along with this person.”

  I followed her down the hall. “I’ve noticed Travis doesn’t get along with a lot of people.”