The Fire In My Eyes

by Christopher Nelson

  Ripley fell silent and lowered the cane. His eyes were no longer glowing, but he looked no happier. “Perhaps I have misjudged you,” he said. “Understand, Mr. Parker, that our organization is not involved in small, petty things. The stakes are high and death is always a possibility. Forgive me. I must be certain of your motivation.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I accept responsibility for what I did. I don't want it to happen again. Your people told me that training would teach me how to control those abilities. I don't want to hurt anyone like that again. So part of accepting my responsibility, is accepting your training.”

  Ripley's eyes glittered. “So that's what it takes to convince you. You cloak your idealism with cynicism. Is that what you want to use your powers for? To help people, to protect people?”

  “I won't know what I want to do with my power until I learn what's possible,” I said.

  “So you don't trust me enough to tell me what your motivation is?”

  “I don't trust you at all,” I said. “You stole my future from me. No matter what I want, I have this power. I don't trust that you have my best interests in mind, only your own. You've given me the choice of joining you or dying, maybe not at your hands, but dying all the same. I don't want to die. There's my motivation.”

  “I see. I understand.” Ripley folded his hands on his cane and gave me a crooked smile.

  I started to relax. “I'm glad we're reaching an understanding. So, where do I sign up?”

  “Sign up?” he asked.

  “To join your organization.”

  “You have made one slight error,” he said. “Your only option is to take us, as you said. However, that does not mean that I will accept you.”

  “What?”

  My muscles froze again, just like on Valentine's Day. Ripley prodded me with his cane and sighed. “You try my patience. I allowed you an open-ended invitation to reconsider. My advisors protested vehemently, yet I believed that you would grow to understand over time. You did, but only due to this disaster. I find your motivation questionable.”

  “Questionable?” The grip had relaxed enough to let me talk. “You think it's questionable that I don't want to die? What other motivation could I have?”

  “An excellent question. Perhaps you have ulterior motives.”

  “Are you accusing me of using you? You want to use me, too, remember. I don't trust you. You don't trust me either. Big surprise.”

  “I trust your given motivation,” he said. “But I don't trust that it's your only motivation. Perhaps you'll seek revenge someday, for the loss of your future. Perhaps, as you said at our first meeting, that your idea of how the world needs saving differs from mine. You have given me no reason to trust you.”

  “And you haven't given me reason to trust you either,” I pointed out. “We don't trust each other, but we don't need to, to make use of what the other offers. You'll have my word on a contract, won't you? My word is good.”

  “Is it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “It's a business relationship. You use me, and I'll use you. What's wrong with that?”

  He clicked his tongue. “Nothing is wrong with that. However, not everyone feels the same way. There are some who believe that you are being accorded special treatment.”

  “Special treatment?”

  “The recent incident did not go unnoticed. While I am the leader of this organization, I do have opposition. What I have done for you, they find abhorrent, undeserved special treatment. They seek to use this incident as justification to deny you membership, and to undermine my authority.” Alistair peered into my eyes. I couldn't pull away, no matter how close he came. “Some go further and demand your termination. Some demand the permanent revocation of your powers. You are fortunate that they cannot come to a consensus.”

  “You can remove someone's powers without killing them?” I asked.

  “Is that what you're most concerned about?”

  “If you were planning on killing me, I'm sure I'd already be dead. If you can switch this power off, it would solve everyone's problems, wouldn't it? So is it possible?”

  The corners of his lips twitched. “While I'm sure you are willing to give up your powers, I doubt you're willing to live the rest of your life as an invalid. Correct?” I tried to nod. “However, temporary impairment of your power is possible, without risk of permanent damage. Therefore, I shall take advantage of the lack of consensus amongst the opposition. As you are not a member of our organization, prosecuting you under our charter would be a ridiculous precedent to set. Since what happened was, in fact, an accident, I find it necessary to review your suitability for our organization. For the duration of the review, your powers will be impaired. At the beginning of next trimester, you will report to my office, at which time we will discuss the results of the review.”

  “Wait, I haven't agreed-”

  “It does not matter if you agree or not,” he said. “Whether or not you join us, the punishment will be carried out. We will resume our discussion at a later time. Are you prepared?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Try to relax. Resistance will make it harder.”

  It was almost a relief, knowing that I would return to being normal, even if just temporarily. Even when Alistair's eyes glowed, I didn't flinch away. He reached out and touched my forehead with his fingertips.

  I found myself on the floor, ears ringing and vision blurred. Someone rolled me onto my back. Three Ripleys loomed over me, waving their hands in front of my face. “Mr. Parker. Can you hear me?” His voice sounded distant, echoing from the bottom of the ocean.

  “Yes.” My tongue felt thick, but he seemed to understand me. “What did you do?”

  “It is an unnatural state,” he said. “Your mind is used to certain patterns, certain methods of thought. It is now twisted, a different sort of mental balance. It will take some time for you to adjust.”

  “Feels like everything is tilted,” I said. I felt slightly off-balance, even when I was sitting on the floor, as if the world was sliding sideways under me. Ripley finally resolved to a single concerned face and I started to stand. He offered me a hand and helped me to my feet. His grip was stronger than I expected.

  “You will recover in time. The worst passes quickly.” He leaned on the desk at the front of the room. “You may leave when you feel you are ready. Good evening, Mr. Parker.”

  I couldn't walk a straight line. I practiced walking back and forth until I felt I could pass a field sobriety test. Ripley watched me fumble around in silence. When I could finally walk across the room without staggering, I headed for the door.

  I pushed the door open harder than I thought I would. Nikki gasped as I burst out of the room. “Kevin? What happened?” I stared at her. She must have been waiting. Why? Did she remember? Blood drained from my face and I looked away. I had to get away from her. I walked down the hall as quickly as I could, staggering as the world seemed to spin around me. “Wait! Kevin, wait!”

  She grabbed my arm. I pulled away and turned my back to her. “What?”

  “What's wrong with you?” she demanded, spinning me around to look me in the eye. I barely kept my balance and forced myself to look away. Her eyes were bright again and her face was flushed, not pale and vacant. “You're walking like a drunk, you’ve been avoiding me, and now when you do look at me, you look like you're seeing a ghost. Are you sick? What happened?”

  “A lot of things happened,” I said, turning away again. “A lot of things that have nothing to do with you.” She didn't remember. I wouldn't tell her. As far as I was concerned, I'd never tell her.

  “Stop it! Don't hide things from me, tell me what's wrong!” She grabbed my arm again.

  I looked back at her. “Funny, hearing that from you.” I pulled away from her grip, walked into the elevator, and mashed the button for the first floor. She was still standing there, right where I had left her, staring at me as the doors closed.

&nb
sp; I stomped through the snow on the way back to the dorm. Cold flakes brushed my face and melted. As my sense of balance returned, my outrage bled away. She hadn't deserved what I had said, but who the hell was she to call me out for hiding things? She was just as bad as I was. Hiding her boyfriend, hiding her affection.

  No, she wasn't as bad as I was. That was bullshit.

  I reached the spot where the mystery car had nearly flattened me and Drew, about halfway between the dorm and the main campus. I looked over at where I had pushed him. The marks were gone due to fresh snowfall, but I remembered where they had been. The woman had said that extreme emotional reactions were probably to blame for my abilities going out of control. That explained how hard I had pushed both Drew and Nikki. However, it didn't explain how the bottle of aspirin had come floating out of the drawer that night when I had the odd dream.

  I paused under a streetlight to rest and think. All three incidents had involved something that defied common sense. All of them involved stress, extreme emotional reactions. I had pushed people twenty feet away and jumped several feet straight up in the air. Those were almost possible for a normal person, if they were in amazing physical condition. My physical condition wasn't even average, let alone amazing. As for the pill bottle, no one could levitate an object like that. That was direct defiance of gravity. Even worse, the woman healing Nikki's injuries. That was far beyond anything a normal person could do. I didn't know first aid, let alone know enough to heal a person from those sorts of injuries.

  Snowflakes drifted down around the streetlight. I tried to visualize it suddenly going out, plunging me into shadow. Nothing happened and I smiled. Of course, nothing would happen right now. Ripley had impaired my power. I almost wanted to ask if he could give me repeated treatments to keep it turned off. Of course, that would probably end with the same result as the permanent treatment. I'd rather be a functional freak than a vegetable.

  I shivered. The cold was too much. I huddled into my coat and continued uphill to the dorm. The main lounge was warm and empty. I shook the snow off and headed upstairs. The door to Andreas's room was partly open and I was tempted to stop and have a drink. I had spent some quality time there in the days after Valentine's Day with him, my roommates, and some experimental brews. It had been a temporary solution to my problems.

  The door to my room was unlocked. Both Max and Drew looked up as I walked in. That was surprising. Outside of sleeping, it wasn't too common that we'd all be in the room at the same time. “What's up, Kev?” Drew asked as I hung my coat up. “You look tired, man.”

  “Exhausted,” I said. “Think I might try to take a nap.”

  “At least you don’t look as depressed,” Max said.

  “It's true,” Drew agreed. “You've been lurching like a zombie ever since Valentine's Day. I was thinking about dragging you to the infirmary.”

  I sighed. They had noticed. It wasn't as if I could hide something that obvious. “I haven't been sleeping well.” I hadn't told them what had happened between Nikki and me. Lisa had fished for answers a couple of days ago, but I hadn't taken the bait.

  “You'll sleep worse when you hear what Max is thinking,” Drew said.

  I looked at Max, who grinned at me around a cigarette. “I was thinking we need to have a bonding experience.”

  I held a hand up. “I don't want to hear anything about bonding with you.”

  “You should be honored. But, seriously, we get all of April off for spring break. I was thinking we could go to Florida. Road trip. Sound good?”

  That sounded rehearsed. “You've been planning this for a while, haven't you?”

  Drew jumped in. “We might miss the big spring break crowd, but man, it's still Florida. Hot beaches! Hot bitches! We might even find a chick with low enough standards for Max.”

  Max flipped him off, but continued to grin at me. “Gives us something to look forward to, get through finals, you know. Change of scenery. Get our minds off of school and the people up here. What do you think?”

  I sat down on my bed and kicked my shoes off. Getting away from the insanity here would be nice. “Sounds great, but I don't have a car. Do you?” Max's grin grew even wider. “You look like you've got something in mind.”

  “Remember how I'm a rich bastard?”

  “You might have mentioned it once or twice before.”

  “My family owns a big ass RV that my dad uses for camping trips. Well, used once, to be exact. It's been sitting around for years. I'm sure I can get my parents to let me borrow it for a month.” Max looked so satisfied with himself, I almost couldn't bring myself to start shooting him down. It did sound like fun, and it would keep my mind off other things.

  “Do you need a special license to drive one? They're huge, aren't they? Hard to drive?” I asked.

  Drew shook his head. “I asked that too. Normal license covers it. No harder to drive than a van. You got your license, right?”

  I nodded. “All right. How would it get here? Is it going to be in any shape to drive after sitting around for so long?”

  “Well, my parents do keep staff on hand for maintenance,” Max said. “I assume it'll be in decent shape. They'll probably send a guy to drive it here and then fly home. Or two guys in two vehicles. Something like that.”

  I lay back on my bed. “How can you be so sure that they'll let you borrow it?”

  Max chuckled. “I haven't asked for anything lately. It's a small favor, as far as my family's concerned.”

  That boggled my mind. Borrow something that probably cost as much as a small house, and call it a small favor? Rich families were weird. “All right, I'm in. I know my parents won't mind. Sounds like fun.”

  Drew cheered. “Told you he'd be in, dude! Call your parents, let's get this set up.”

  I rolled onto my side and watched Max call home. “This is Max. Yes, that Max. Is my mother available? Sure, I'll wait.” He rolled his eyes. “Maximillian, my ass. No matter how often I tell them to call me Max, they never listen.”

  “You have people to pick up the phone for you?”

  “My mom's personal assistant. What, did you think we had a butler?”

  “I was hoping for maids.”

  “Yeah, me too, but my mom always kills that plan whenever I float it.”

  Drew leaned over toward me. “Hey, Kev. Five bucks says he gets it, no problems.”

  “Done,” I said, sitting up and pulling out my wallet. Drew followed suit. We both slapped five dollar bills down on the corner of my bed.

  Max flipped us both off, then turned his attention back to the phone. “Hello, Mother? Yes, it's me, your darling son. I'm fine. No, no disasters, no catastrophes. My grades are fine. My health is fine. My friends are fine.” He paused, then pulled the phone slightly away from his ear and grimaced. “What do you mean, 'what do you want then'? That's quite rude.”

  “I'd probably ask the same thing,” I said.

  Max shot me a dirty look, then spun his chair around, facing away from us. “Well, I'm looking for a favor. Nothing too big. I was just hoping to borrow the old RV that Father bought for that camping trip a few years ago. Why? We were thinking of making a trip to Florida.” He sighed again. “I know, I should stop by and meet all these wonderful girls you know, rather than wasting my youth away. Oh? Oh, her. She's wider than she is tall. I don't care how nice she is or how rich her family is, she's not really my type.”

  Drew shouted a little louder than necessary, probably so that he could be heard on the other end of the phone. “Max, there really are girls out there who have low enough standards for you?”

  Max winced and spun back around. “No, that was Drew, Mother, you met him last time you were here. Yes, I'll tell him.” He lowered the phone for a moment and covered the mouthpiece. “You, sir, are an uncouth young man.”

  Drew gave Max a thumbs-up and grinned. Max rolled his eyes and spun back around. “Yes. One month, for our spring break in April. My discretionary fund should cover the costs. No, none
of us have driven one before, but we'll figure it out. There are plenty of guides on the internet on what to do. All right, I can wait.” He covered the mouthpiece again. “She's going to ask my father. She's being pretty agreeable, which makes me nervous. But I think it's in the bag.”

  “Looks like you're about to lose,” Drew said to me. “I'll have a drink in your honor.”

  “It's not over yet,” I said.

  “What did Father say? Oh?” Max blinked twice, then his face slowly drained of color. He reached into his desk and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. His hand shook as he pulled a single cigarette free, then dropped it on the floor. “I understand. Really?” Color returned to his face. “Well, I'm interested. Let me check with my friends.”

  “That doesn't sound too good,” Drew said as Max covered the mouthpiece of his phone, then bent over to scoop up the dropped cigarette.

  “Well, they don't want me to borrow the RV. I don't understand why, they never use the damn thing. But, they made me a counter-offer.” Max examined the cigarette, then blew on it and stuck it in his mouth. “If I come home for spring break, they'll buy me a new car.”

  “A new car?” I asked. “Seriously? New as in new, or new to you?”

  “Brand new. Mom said to let her know what I was interested in and she'd pass it along. She also said that my friends are invited to come spend the month at our place,” he added. “So, if you guys are cool with it, we'll do that this break, and we can take a road trip in August. My parents will provide transportation there and back. I'll ask Lisa and Jess if they want to come. Andreas too, but he'll probably be busy with research. Think we should ask Kaitlyn?” He glanced at me.

  I shook my head. If we asked Kaitlyn, we'd have to ask Nikki. No way. “Andreas would get jealous.”

  “True enough,” Drew agreed, nodding at me.

  “It's a plan, then,” Max said. He took his hand off the mouthpiece. “Mother? I just asked my roommates. We’ll do it. How many? I'd say no more than half a dozen, including myself, but that's subject to change. I'll be in touch with you over the next couple of weeks about the details. Yes, I understand. All right. Goodbye, Mother.”