Star Child: Places of Power

by Leonard Petracci

  “Of course!” I lied as she opened the door back inside. “And, Arial, one more question. Your father, what’s his power? What’s he do?”

  “He works with the city in their Special registration department, helping identify Specials that are here without proper documentation,” she said, her expression darkening as I mentioned him once more. “He’s a Hunter. Once he’s felt a Special’s power, he can track the individual down from it, almost like a scent it leaves behind. And bye, SC, see you soon! At school!”

  Then she left, and I swallowed, looking back towards Twelfth Street. Where a hole was still fresh in my apartment wall, and Ariel’s father would be investigating.

  Seeking the scent of a Special that definitely had no documentation.

  Chapter 9

  I’d grown up poor, but never so poor to live without a home.

  My mother’s track record made finding work difficult – she’d been fired as a nurse, and blacklisted from any additional opportunities at the space program by the engineering director trying to cover the potential scandal. Whenever she found work, employers were pleased with her efforts, but the career ladder for maids is short and being a single mother meant she had little time to pursue other opportunities. But no matter how small that week’s paycheck, dinner always found a way onto the table. And though there may have been holes in the plaster, a roof was always over my head.

  Tonight, my first night without her, was also the first on the street.

  Her voice echoed in my head as I walked away from Arial’s home, considering trying to return to my own apartment and sneak a night in my own bed, the night growing cold and rain threatening to soak me once more.

  They can't know, do you understand me? my mother’s voice echoed in my mind.

  But by now, anyone inspecting the area was likely gone – crimes occurred often in my portion of the city, and police rarely stayed longer than a few minutes if there was no one present to handcuff. I’d at least check to see if the crowd was still there, or if see if there was someone who might lend me their couch for the night. And I promised myself I would be careful.

  I frowned and walked quickly, my hands in my pockets, remembering the Directory’s description of Hunters and reviewing it as I came closer to my door, only able to bring the synopsis to mind.

  Those with the ability to track the powers of others, their own power level determined by the distance of their senses, ranging from several feet to several miles. After study, it has been determined that Hunters cannot sense individuals themselves, but rather levels of power activity.

  Since Arial’s father had not been present when I used my power, the danger should be minimal – and just to be sure, I would refrain from using it unless I was certain I was safe. Yet part of me wondered what exactly would happen if he did find me. Stern as he was, he held a admiration of the rarer powers, and mine was more rare than anyone’s I had ever known. Maybe he’d help me, or at least provide me with food, shelter, and education while I searched for my mother. Once he realized the true nature of my power, maybe he would be eager to help.

  As I thought, I cut through a park that had degenerated to wildlife from years of neglect and ran alongside my apartment building, my shoes sloshing through puddles and scraggly trees reaching high into the sky from both sides of the gravel path. The benches I passed were occupied with homeless men and women claiming them like personal territory, glaring as I passed, the wind carrying the sound of their chattering teeth. From the underbrush, I heard rustling and I took care to stick as close as possible to the center of the path, jumping as a chipmunk streaked under my feet. An owl hooted at my back, and I felt the hair on my neck stand up as I neared the exit and saw the blue lights reflected off the mist.

  Crouching so the hedges ahead concealed me, I crept forward, thankful that park maintenance budget had been slashed for so long that the last time the lights had been replaced was before I had been born. And wedging myself between two particularly large bushes, with my breath stilled and careful to be as quiet as possible, I suppressed a gasp as I glimpsed my apartment.

  Three police cars were parked at the entrance of the building, forming a trapezoidal barrier on the sidewalk with a gap on the right side, two officers manually admitting the other occupants of the apartment after checking identification. Three more officers were posted at each corner of the building, and four surrounded a small group of people with Arial’s father at the head, his jaw clenched as he surveyed them. There was Rickey and his wife, her expression accusatory while he wore his best bathrobe for the occasion, plus two other sets of neighbors that had occasionally stopped by to ask my mother for aid in mending a garment or removing stains. And at the front of the crowd was Stephen and his mother, Stephen’s face white from more than the cold.

  “I’m going to ask again,” said The Hunter, the edge in his voice carrying into the park from thirty feet away, the crowd bristling as he spoke. “There was a woman and a child in room 662 where the event occurred, most of you have confirmed that much. Although some of you,” He glared at Rickey, who seemed to be missing the whiskey and soda that was a natural extension of his hand, “can’t even recall that much. We need a description of the child; even a simple one will suffice. This is for your own safety, as this could potentially be a situation that could put all of your lives in danger. You there at the front, you stated that he was in your class. What was his hair color?”

  Stephen shuffled his feet, his forehead creased in thought, shaking his head as he answered.

  “I, I don’t know,” he said on the verge of tears. “He was my best friend, but when I think about it, I can’t remember. I mean, I remember him, and I always recognized him, but the details just seem blurry, like I just never really paid attention to them. I know he had hair, at least, I think. Maybe brown?”

  “Am I to presume he was balding at thirteen?” sneered Arial’s father, his voice incredulous, and Stephen flinched back. “Are there no details, nothing from any of you? The boy – that much you have agreed on, that it was a boy – lived there for several years. How is a physical description beyond you?”

  “Investigator,” said one of the officers to Arial’s father, his badge flashing as he turned, his uniform stretched to cover bulging muscles, “you’ve been at it over a half an hour. We’ll dispatch some of our own to question tomorrow, but it’s getting late, and we’re getting nowhere. We’ll check internally to see if we have anything on activity at the apartment as well.”

  “Fine,” hissed Arial’s father, his eyes flashing, “You’re all dismissed, and each of you will have a follow up. If you are acting to protect him, know that you are standing in the way of the law and will be punished. Roland,” he said, confronting the officer that had spoken up, “how close are they?”

  “Nearly here,” the officer responded. “They received a call on the other end of the city before you arrived, false alarm.”

  “Wonderful, just wonderful – your team is yet again showing their adeptness for situations such as these. Have they at least found anything inside?”

  “Nothing, no pictures, no description. We know his size from his clothes and shoes, we have samples of his handwriting, and his fingerprints, but that’s it. Have you…” started the officer, and shifted as he asked the question, rolling his shoulders in discomfort. “Have you sensed anything?”

  “Nothing,” Arial’s father answered. “The entire apartment's muddled. I can’t pick up anything distinct. Nothing tangible to lock on to, no clear scent. It’s as if no one with powers has occupied it in years. Roland, I want this block monitored every minute of the night and day. I cannot stress to you how important it is that we catch this one alive. We don’t have time for another repeat of last time, understood?”

  In the distance, a siren wailed, growing louder as Arial’s father walked to the side of the building and waved the new vehicle over, a fire truck staffed with a tired crew near the end of their shift. Too far away for me to hear, he gesture
d, Officer Roland nodding beside him as one of the firemen lowered the bucket for The Hunter to step inside. Then they raised it up the side of the building, elevating him to the hole in the wall high above where my dark sphere had torn through the brick. The Hunter raised his hands to the hole, his fingers brushing the morphed edge, his eyes shut, the artery in his neck visible from even where I stood. Then they lowered the bucket and he walked with Officer Roland back to his car, passing only a dozen feet in front of me.

  “It’s faint, just enough to sense, but I’ve got the bastard. Be ready to go at a moment’s notice – the next time I sense him using his power, we’ll ambush him before he has a chance to escape. With this little to go on, he'll be close. Remember, alive. By how much doesn’t matter.”

  “I'm not going to kill a child, Art.”

  “That's what you said last time too,” came the retort.

  They departed, each moving in separate directions, Arial’s father towards his home and Roland deeper into the city. And waiting until several minutes after they left, I backed into the park once more, knowing I would sleep in the cold.

  If I slept at all.

  Chapter 10

  “Are you hiding too?” the voice rasped from behind my ear, so close I could feel hot breath on the back of my neck. I jumped and yelped, whipping around as I fell into brambles alongside the hedge, threadlike scratches running up my forearm. Above me, the figure of one of the park’s homeless smiled with a nearly full collection of teeth, his gaunt face leaning forward as he studied me.

  “Hell, you scared me!” I exclaimed, still trying to back away, thorns digging into my back.

  He cocked his head, his straggling hair drifting over his shoulder, and spoke in an excited voice.

  “True, that’s true! But are you hiding like me?”

  “No, I’m not hiding,” I said, my feet finding purchase on the ground as I stood up, thankful he had not approached closer but was content to watch me. “I was just going home.”

  “False!” he exclaimed, wagging a finger. “I know, oh yes I do! True, false, true, false! I always know which!” Then he leaned in, looking left and right before whispering behind his hand to ensure none of the others could hear him, “That’s why they don’t like me, that’s why they tried to get rid of me. That’s why I hide. Because I always know, and I always tell.”

  “Who tried to get rid of you?” I asked, inching to the right for a path around him, but he sidestepped in front of me, giggling.

  “Them! But it didn’t work. I escaped! Hah, they didn’t get me!” he exclaimed, hopping from foot to foot in excitement, then raised an eyebrow as he pointed to his head. “False. Except here. They got me a little bit here, didn’t they? I still think of them every night, oh their voices, their beautiful voices. Singing beautiful lies, lies I can still hear bouncing around. Is that why you are hiding? Because they’re trying to get you too? You can hide with me. I know all the good places.”

  “No, thank you,” I said, noticing we had attracted the attention of several other figures that were approaching, keeping watch from the darker shadows, as the hair pricked up on my neck. “It’s fine, I really don’t need to hide.”

  “False! Oh so false!” he shouted to the sky, practically howling the words like a wolf to the moon. “That’s what I thought ten years ago too. I was excited – first graduating class, see? The trial batch. I even kept the ring!” He extended his arm towards me, bruises and dirt covering nearly every inch of skin, showing off a silver band on his finger, and concern crossed his face, “I didn’t earn the ring, though. I never graduated. But promise you won’t tell, will you?”

  “I promise I won't,” I answered as he exhaled a breath of relief and I thought of potential areas to place force points should the dark shapes move forward to attack, cursing as I realized that would be a dead giveaway of my position to Ariel’s father, who was only minutes away.

  “True, I think. That you won't.”

  “Yes, true. But I need to leave now, okay?” I said and started walking along the inside of the hedge as he trotted next to me.

  “True.”

  “It’s been nice talking to you, really.” I was nearing the edge of the park, where it opened into street lights, and quickened my pace.

  “False. False, false, that's false!” he said, matching my steps, his breathing ragged. Then he came to a dead halt as I stepped onto pavement, and he waited at the border of the park.

  “They’ll take you if they find you, if you’re worth it,” he said, keeping his face in the dark, his voice strained. “They’ll take you where they took me. To rehabilitation. But don’t leave the park, they never found me in the park for all ten years. True. They gave up long ago, looking for me, looking for Mikey.”

  “A rehabilitation facility!” I realized, turning back to face him as he flinched. “That’s where they took you? You escaped there? Did they teach you to fight?”

  “True, all true,” he whispered, stepping backwards, his eyes wide and hands starting to shake. “Oh, I hear them now, the voices. The singing. Back to the park for Mikey, back before the outside pulled me away, back to the bottom. Back to hide, true, no more fighting. No matter how beautiful the voices, I’ll never go back. Beautiful lies. False lies.”

  Then he meshed with the darkness until only the whites of his eyes were visible, staring out in the street. And he placed his fingers into his ears, shaking his head as if trying dislodge something, screaming so loud his voice echoed back from the alleyways, stirring dogs to bark as he drew out the word as long as he could.

  “False!”

  I rushed away, my feet beating against the pavement as he retreated into the park, angry voices sounding in retaliation as inhabitants were awakened in their homes. I was too close to my apartment to risk the attention in streetlight, and I only slowed several blocks later, thinking of where to go next. And knowing that I had stumbled upon an enormous problem.

  Had I been attacked in the park, I would have been defenseless without revealing myself. And without full knowledge of a Hunter’s skill, risking the use of any amount of my powers meant I could be tracked, then found. That meant I couldn’t train to fight without being discovered. And without knowing how to fight, without knowing how to use my powers, saving my mother would be impossible.

  To learn about myself, I had to know more about Arial’s father first. I had to know his limitations, the ways I could evade his power, if any existed at all. And for that, I had to return to the same place that I had stolen the Directory.

  The special section of the library.

  I missed the light from my orbs as I navigated the dark streets, hiding behind trash cans and within alleyways whenever cars passed, waiting until a count of thirty to move once more if they were police. By the time I reached the library’s stone steps, my feet were dragging rather than walking and my eyelids sinking under the weight of the day. So I walked around to the back, rain starting to fall once more from above, thunder sounding far in the distance. And I found a reading bench, one meant for sitting upon on sunny days, but served as an umbrella as I fell asleep underneath, the frigid stone biting into my shoulder blades. Knowing that if I cast a force point to my right and my left, I could pull the cold water away from puddling at my side. And choosing to shiver instead.

  Chapter 11

  The building door opened when sunlight breached the sky, the aged librarian struggling to climb each of the steps, her cane tapping against the hard stone. By then I was awake and rested – not well rested, but recharged enough to venture out from under my bench, thankful that blue sky showed overhead and that the wind was still. And when I saw her climbing the steps, I realized my chance.

  The library itself was closed for another half hour as she performed the duties necessary prior to allowing the public inside. For that hour, her hawk-like surveillance of the shelves from behind the central desk would be disrupted – instead, she would be sorting files as I had seen her finishing on those days I h
ad arrived just on open. Which meant that any activity from me, so long as it was quiet enough, would go unnoticed.

  So as she let the door fall shut behind her, I raced up the steps on tiptoe, careful not to alert her ears, which were far less acute than her eyes. And just before the door shut, I caught it with my index finger, preventing the lock from clicking back into place. I counted to ten, my finger pinched in the door, casting a wary glance towards the street, which was still asleep at this time of the morning. Then I slipped inside, careful to shut the door softly as I treaded through the familiar hall and spotted the librarian with her head down, the enormous bags underneath her eyes visible even from my distance.

  I’d heard she was a Narcolept, though I’d never confirmed it – and either way, she certainly bore the look. For though they never slept, Narcolepts were plagued with the perpetual symptoms of a restless night, a source of near constant yawns and long blinks. Typically, they flocked to universities and academia, especially since many trade professions wouldn’t even consider hiring one due to the risk of a inattentive worker, though they also peppered the top positions of business and law firms alike. From what I could recall, they were born in locations with near constant sources of noise, near airports and train hubs that ran through the night, and city centers that, like them, never slept.

  I crept along the side wall as she faced the other direction, making my way to the shelves towards the end of the library typically monitored by the second librarian who arrived later in the day. Back there, it was still dark, the stacks of books in slumber, many of the volumes covered in dust and unused even during the peak hours. Considering only members of the academies had access, traffic flow was always low, the Specials paying a premium to keep the descriptions of their powers behind the barrier except for those like themselves.

  The Directory still under my bed was merely an overview of the knowledge held in these shelves, each of the tomes diving into specific types of Specials and theories behind powers. Some were filled with pages upon pages of raw data, geographic locations, chronological dates, and groupings of powers. Others were far more speculative and outdated, though often there was still a glimmer of truth in the chapters. And today, I walked to the section marked “H,” tags underneath each collection of books labelled.