by Kal Spriggs
“What?” Shaden asked. This was crazy. What Janecek said made no sense. Even if he was right, why would they have him killed? “I’m not going to—”
“So what’s it going to be?” his killer asked. “Easy or hard? If you kneel down and take it like a good lad… I would make it clean and so much easier on the cleanup team.” His grin grew warmer as Shaden backed away. “Of course, if you fight, I may have some fun.”
Shaden stared at the other man. He wanted to think this was all some kind of joke. The weapons argued otherwise. So did the total certainty in Janecek’s face. Either the man was insane or what he told Shaden held at least partial truth.
Either way, Shaden didn’t have much of a choice. When it came down to it, he told Janecek what he wanted to tell him from their first encounter. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Good, I wanted some fun,” Janecek grinned. He tucked his stolen pistol into his belt and then whipped his blade around with viper speed.
Shaden took up a defensive stance as the other man crouched low.
The killer leapt forward with impossible speed. Three kicks, delivered with a speed and force that Shaden could not see, much less counter, threw him backwards into the trees. Shaden struck the springy branches of a pine and cold snow cascaded down on top of him. He staggered out. His chest ached and he struggled to breathe.
He didn’t see Janecek until the other man bore down on him. Janecek grabbed Shaden by the collar and used the studded hand guard of his sword like brass knuckles. Shaden’s head rocked back and he saw stars. After two more blows, Shaden sagged against the other man’s grip.
Janecek laughed and then spun him in a short semi-circle and heaved.
Shaden felt the other man push him with more force than mere muscle. He flew outwards, over the railing and landed hard on the ice of the basin. He skidded fifteen or twenty feet before he finally came to a stop in a small bank of snow.
Shaden shook his muddled head and got to his hands and knees. Blood from his gashed forehead and his broken nose streamed onto the ice in front of him. He felt the warmth as it ran down his face as he looked back the thirty feet or more to where Janecek stood.
“Ah, that was awesome!” Janecek shouted. He jerked his head back and forth, “God I missed this! Can you even comprehend how much I hated playing nice with you and that dumb bitch I had to train?”
Shaden grabbed a handful of snow and held it to his nose. He pushed himself to his feet. “Halving will kill you for this. ESPSec will track you—”
“You stupid, little bastard,” Janecek shook his head, “Who the hell do you think told me to do this? You’ve been a dead man since this morning when Jonathan got the go ahead to off you.” Janecek’s hyena-like laugh struck a nerve and Shaden’s fingers clenched into fists. All his confusion and panic were washed away by rage. Shaden had never felt so angry in his life.
“God, you’re going to die thinking the people who used you like a lab rat are saints, and that makes even me feel a little sad.” Janecek cocked his head and sniffed experimentally. “Well, not that sad, but vaguely disconcerted.” Janecek leapt over the bench and railing and onto the ice in a single bound. He spun his blade in a couple quick arcs. “Time to start getting into the fun parts.”
As Janecek advanced, Shaden squeezed his eyes tight and focused his mind. He opened his eyes and grunted as he pushed with everything he had. He poured every bit of anger into it and his heartbeat roared in his ears.
Janecek grinned as a wall of force rippled across the surface of the ice, picking up snow until there was a towering wall of force-driven snow that whipped towards the other man. Shaden’s tormentor just waved a hand though and it parted around him. “Huh, finally you show a little progress. Not enough, though. Here, catch.” He threw his machete forward and Shaden felt the man push it. Shaden dodged to the side even as he pushed with his mind. The blade rang as he struck it with raw force, deflecting it with his mind just enough that it whistled past his ear.
He heard it impact the bridge with a solid thud.
“Quick learner,” Janecek shook his head, “Too bad for you Halving thinks Kandergain is the better pick. Truth to tell, I’d like a little one-on-one time with her better than you… if you know what I mean.”
As Janecek tilted his head back for another of his laughs, Shaden lunged forward. He push himself with his mind and lashed out with a kick, but Janecek moved to the side with inhuman speed. Shaden spun and kicked out again and then closed the distance to punch.
Janecek blocked or dodged every blow Shaden swung. As he began to tire, Shaden’s attacks slowed. Janecek blocked his last punch then smiled and struck him with a kick backed by his psychokinetic abilities. Shaden flew back towards the shore and skidded to a stop, only a few feet away from the railing overlooking the pond.
It was all Shaden could do to stay conscious. He lay limp, struggling to get his eyes to focus and to make his brain form thoughts. Shaden could barely breathe from the last blow and his ribs screamed in agony. The pain washed out his anger, washed out his focus and left him shaking and empty. I’m going to die, Shaden realized.
If he was going to die, he was going to face his death, he thought stubbornly. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to a kneeling position. The world reeled around him, and spots danced in his vision.
Janecek shook his head with a pleased smile, “Well, I didn’t expect this much of you. You were almost a challenge. Pity it’s only now you showed it. I’m sure Halving will be interested in how this turned out.” He drew his pistol from where he’d tucked it in his belt and took up a shooting stance. “A shame you‘ll never have the opportunity to see how much of a puppet you are.”
Shaden stared down the dark barrel of the gun.
The storm seemed to still around them. Shaden heard the safety of the pistol click off. He watched the muscles and tendons of Janecek’s hand as the other man’s finger tightened on the trigger. It only takes three pounds of force to squeeze the trigger of a M17 pistol, a detached part of his brain reminded him.
The world seemed to slow to a crawl, the snowflakes hung frozen in air that seemed to be made of glass. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind. His brain flashed over his training, every lesson and every bit of teaching evaluated and checked for anything that could save him.
His brain froze on a memory of his first lesson with Janecek. The other man had mentioned pyrokinesis, the ability to heat things with one’s mind.
They both stood on a sheet of solid ice.
In the last heartbeat as Janecek squeezed the trigger, Shaden reached out with his mind. He pushed past his internal revulsion for psychic abilities and reached out to the very molecules of water that lay chained in solid form beneath him.
His mind seemed to expand as he felt the world beneath him. He could feel the ice in a way he couldn’t put words to. He could sense its depth, and the cold salt water below. He could feel the mud beneath that, and the cold air that hovered above the ice.
He turned his attention to the ice and began to push at it. It didn’t feel at all like he pushed an object. It felt more like he tried to swim through molasses. With only the power of his brain to do it. He reached down, into the ice beneath them both. He felt the energies flow in the water, felt the hunger for energy from the ice. Shaden wrenched and pulled with his mind. He forced the molecules into motion with the brunt force of his mind. The water molecules didn’t want to move. His mind struggled at them for what seemed like an eternity until suddenly every molecule gave way at once.
The surface disappeared beneath him just as a bullet buzzed past his head.
Shaden sank to his hips in the cold water. He felt suddenly and totally exhausted. He shook his head stupidly. He stared at the splashing form of Janecek for a moment in incomprehension.
The deeper water rose above the other man’s head. In his surprise, his executioner splashed and struggled, still too shocked to tread water or swim. He can still get me, Shaden realized. The other
man would just swim to the shore and finish Shaden off unless he did something to stop him.
His muddled brain fought for traction, and finally thoughts began to flow again through his brain. A simple thought stunned him nearly back into his exhausted stupor. If he could melt the ice, then he could also freeze the water.
Shaden reached out with his mind again and felt the molecules of the water. They moved and flowed against each other in a way his mind found both natural and bizarre at once. His mind caressed the flow. He felt the energy that lay in that movement.
His mind seized that energy and pulled.
The water fought him at first, but then it flowed away quickly… easily. The molecules of water shifted, then aligned, and finally they formed solid structures. All of the water in the basin turned to ice, from the surface all the way to the bottom.
Shaden sagged forward and rested his head on his arms.
A moment later he realized the oddity.
His arms rested on the ice. His feet were in the frozen mud of the basin. Ice encased him all the way up to his waist.
His body gave him warnings now, for the ice squeezed him painfully.
It took him a moment to fight off the urge to panic. Slowly, he reached out with his mind and felt the ice encasing his body. He went through the process to warm it. It seemed to take all of his effort to melt a small pool around his body and then climb out of it to lay on the hard and cold surface of the ice.
The melting of the lake had left him feeling exhausted. The effort to freeze it solid had left him with a buoyed feeling, like a caffeine rush after a long day of work. The effort to free himself of the ice had drained that away.
He sat up suddenly as his sluggish brain reminded him why he had frozen the lake. He looked over to where Janecek had struggled.
A single hand holding a pistol jutted out of the ice. As Shaden watched, the pistol fell free and the hand clawed at the air. Shaden felt suddenly nauseated at what he’d done. The ice must totally encase the other man and leave him unable to see or breathe or hear. For a heartbeat, Shaden reached out, ready to melt the ice around Janecek.
He paused as he remembered the other man’s actions and words.
Shaden stood and he stared at the twitching hand that jutted out of the ice.
As he remembered the man’s humiliations, Shaden felt a resolution take hold. He limped across the ice to stand over the hand. Slowly, painfully, he leaned forward and picked up the pistol. He stared down at the twitching hand for a long moment. Some part of him wondered if the pressures of the expanding ice had crushed Janecek or if the bully was alive, slowly suffocating in his icy tomb. Either way, Shaden stood waiting until the hand went limp. He didn’t feel satisfaction at the knowledge of Janecek’s death, just some sense of stunned relief. He had survived. Janecek would never again hurt anyone.
Shaden shivered as the wind gusted and he realized that his hands and feet had gone numb. He turned and stumbled for the shore. It took all the effort he could muster to climb over the railing onto the shore. The wind and storm, while blunted, still remained. Soaked as he was, he knew he had only a short time before hypothermia set in. He felt distant from his body, already, a sure sign that it had already taken hold.
Suddenly inspired, he reached out with his mind again. A moment later, his clothing steamed as the water heated again.
The effort drained him of his last dregs of energy and he felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. He snorted slightly at the thought, I can’t imagine why... The sarcastic thought seemed out of place, yet the dark humor seemed to make the overwhelming situation manageable.
His eyes caught on the bag Janeck had drawn his weapons from. He found a change of civilian clothing, and most importantly, a heavy, warm, leather trench coat. Shaden pulled that out and put it on over his still-damp sweats. He pulled the backpack on over one shoulder and started for the gate to the park, the two sets of tracks still clear in the snow. He could limp back to Doctor Halving’s facility, get some medical attention and…
And maybe just a bullet to the back of the head, Shaden thought. He stopped and stared at the footprints.
Janecek’s words came back to him.
He called Shaden naïve and stupid. He said ESPSec had authorized Halving to kill him. A part of him whispered that if ESPSec thought him a danger, then perhaps he should surrender himself. He knew they wouldn’t make such a decision lightly.
Something else silenced that voice. Shaden had just fought for his life, for his very survival. At the time, Shaden hadn’t had time to think things through. He had fought for to live out of pure instinct, when he knew that his loyalty to Amalgamated Worlds should have given him every reason to surrender.
After his confrontation and struggle, life felt too important to yield. He had managed to harness his psychic abilities, managed to perform an ability that Janecek had mocked as impossible. Shaden managed that because of his stubborn refusal to quit, he knew. That came from one simple fact: Shaden did not want to die.
If even half the words Janecek spoke contained elements of truth, then a return to Halving’s facility would result in death. Even if Shaden went under the assumption that ESPSec would not execute him for the death of Mark Janecek they would certainly send him to an internment camp. Or a research lab, Shaden thought, where they could dissect me and see how my abilities worked. He felt suddenly uneasy over those thoughts, for only a short time ago, that had seemed a proper destination for a rogue psychic.
Which is what I’ve become, he realized. In his refusal of Janecek’s death sentence he crossed the boundary from servant of the state to enemy of the same. He now saw ESPSec and Amalgamated Worlds in a suddenly sinister light and that shook Shaden to the core. Every thought in his head told him to follow the will of Amalgamated Worlds. They had cared for him, they defended humanity against…
Against me, Shaden thought with dawning horror, against me and people like me… people who may have done nothing wrong, nothing besides trying to survive.
He shook his head at those thoughts. Shaden had hurt people before. He had killed four medical technicians and seriously injured three others. Doctor Halving had told him so. Anything that the Bureau of ESP Security decided to do to him after that was justified. Without oversight, without someone in authority, Shaden might hurt someone.
At least, he thought, that’s what Doctor Halving told me… and Janecek said that Doctor Halving used me, that I was his puppet. That thought forced him into motion again. If he couldn’t trust what Doctor Halving had told him… if he couldn’t trust the people that ESPSec had put over him… who could he trust?
Why couldn’t he trust himself? If he had his way, he would never use his powers again. Certainly that would protect innocents… if he didn’t use his powers, then he obviously couldn’t hurt anyone with them. Shaden nodded slowly and then limped towards the gate to the park. He would leave, start over, and make something new with his life.
He stopped at the gate, though. Shaden looked up the road towards the hill and then down the road in the opposite direction. Even if he left Halving and ESPSec behind, where would he go? What would he do? He didn’t know where he was. He had no money, no resources, and no identity card or travel papers.
For that matter, would they follow him? Would he live the rest of his life on the run? He felt every ache of his abused body and the panic and fear of how Janecek had taunted him. Could he live the rest of his life, always looking over his shoulder?
He stood in indecision for a moment longer, then put his back to the hill and started walking. It might be stupid. It might be ignorant and it certainly would be dangerous. He had one thing that he could deny to Janecek and in turn to Halving and the others: Shaden would not be their puppet.
***
Chapter 9
It amazes me that the most ardent deniers of some sort of cosmic authority also deny us the position of free will. They ardently reject fate or divine authority and at the same time speak of “instinct
” and “environment” as the source of all our actions. I'm proof that there is such a thing as free will, that my individual choices were my own despite my environment and conditions... which in turn, gives me faith in a higher power. What else, after all, can empower us to act above animal instinct?
--Memoirs of Shaden Mira
Again and again, I find that ESPSec's search for the environmental catalysts that trigger latent psychic abilities to be a source of both amusement and annoyance. They have secretly spent countless hours running tests on otherwise normal citizens, exposing them to radiation, chemicals, sonic frequencies, light displays, and even various diseases in efforts to study sources for the environmental triggers that turn a normal into a psychic. Along the way they have killed tens of thousandss in their single-minded approach with not a single quantifiable result. I seem to be the only one who has put it together…
--Dr. Jonathan Halving, Project Archon Notes.
Shaden had only limped a few meters when he heard a growl behind him. He froze, suddenly certain some wild beast had come upon him. The growl steadied out and he turned to see a large black pick-up truck down the road pull out and head towards him at a slow pace.
A sense of calm came over him. It seemed he wouldn’t get the chance to run after all. He squared his shoulders. At least I can face death on my feet, he thought.
The truck pulled to a stop next to him. The growling diesel engine seemed abnormally loud on the otherwise empty street.
The driver window lowered and Angel stared out at him from behind the wheel. “Passenger door’s open. Get in.” Her voice held an odd edge, one part relief and another part fear.
Shaden stared at her for a moment, confused again. Was this some kind of test?
“Look we haven’t got long before they notice Janecek hasn’t returned. If they notice me gone as well… it won’t be good. Get in the truck.” Her lips pressed together in a nervous line.
Shaden nodded, and limped around to the passenger door. His ribs screamed at him again as he climbed into the large truck and pulled the door closed. The cab seemed abnormally quiet despite the air heater that blasted him and the swish of the wiper blades across the windshield.
