"And how to fix them."
Kevin colored a little under Terry's intense stare. "You know how to make people right – like I do with machines?"
"It seems that way. I haven't tested that yet. As I said, it could be an illusion."
"The 'soft sciences.'" Terry grunted out a laugh. "You know, I love being able to walk, being so much stronger, not getting tired. But it all sort of scares the shit out of me, too."
"Embrace your insecurity. It's natural."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Imagine what life would be like if we were perfectly secure."
"Crap. So your superpower is being Tony Robbins?" But strangely, Terry did feel better as he considered that. "So what's the purpose of all this? Why is the machine giving us all these weird abilities?"
Kevin drew a deep breath and forced a smile. "It's like the angel told your grandmother. It's preparing us."
"For what?" Terry scowled at him. "Please don't say the 'Overmind.'"
"I don't know. I just feel like I can see the motivations of the creatures that designed the cylinder and sent it out into the universe, even though they're not here. If they were, I'd know, I'm sure of it."
"You're starting to weird me out, dude. Need to embrace my insecurities more, I guess."
THOMAS JR. had always wanted to visit Washington, D.C., to follow in the footsteps of Louis Farrakhan and his million man march. That had been a bit before his time, but what he was about to do would dwarf Farrakhan's remarkable achievements. What he was about to do would put Farrakhan, King, and Gandhi all to shame. In a few hours he was gonna have this country by the throat, and then real change would take place.
It was cool to travel in style, to march on through to First Class with no TSA hassles or anyone getting in your way. Righteous to have his homeys at his side swilling champagne and watching the flight attendants' asses – all gorgeous because he'd thrown out all the queers and dogs and hand-picked the prettiest girls in uniform as they waltzed their way to the gate.
They were airborne in minutes because he had some TSA honcho put every other flight on hold. A non-stop flight to Washington, D.C. Sweet.
He'd left most of his "flock" – he liked to think of them that way – back in Grand Forks with instructions to lie low and not stir up any shit. The government would be responding soon enough, and it was gonna get heavy, he had no doubt about that. But with any luck, he'd strike the first blow and cut off their balls before they could start fucking with them.
He had his main posse along: James Boulder, a born-again white supremacist now loyal servant to his black master. Boulder, a huge white dude with Ayran Brotherhood tattoos atop his mountainous shoulders – in James River, second only in size and musculature to his main man, Tyler Leonard – was the most physically powerful of his people: he could move heavy shit with his mind alone. Hell, he might just be capable of moving actual mountains considering how he'd blown those MRAPs and cop cars to kingdom come. He could break, burn, and downright explode shit with his brain power. That kind of force might not be needed. Thomas hoped not. Despite his hatred of The Man, he wasn't no stone-cold killer. But on his path to glory some dickhead might be wearing earplugs or be hearing impaired or something, and then some extra muscle might be needed.
Tyler was also at his side – of his own free will. Surrendering to the growing tide of super-powered convicts, he'd even played a role in the breakout, lending his own unique talents to the massive force applied by James Boulder and friends. Turns out his power went beyond interior decorating and crochet. The brother saw things – how shit fit together. One glance at the police cars blocking the prison parking lots and he saw the point of weakness. He could look at a crowd and say where to walk to avoid running into anyone. Could be a damn valuable commodity, Thomas thought. He smirked. Specially if I need a new shawl or something.
Besides Tyler and Boulder were three other righteous brothers who could light things up real good if the shit hit the fan. Dylan was a Native American. What Thomas had once called a "prairie nigger." But he was now more enlightened, recognizing the value of his Red Brothers. Good thing he'd gotten enlightened because Dylan was one helluva medicine man. He couldn't move objects with his head – not directly, like Boulder – but he could make you sick or kill you by performing some kind of Voodoo ritual shit involving clay figures and pins. And maybe he could do a lot more, because he, like most of the others, hadn't truly explored his powers.
Marcus, a tall brother who was deadly with a knife, couldn't move large objects with his mind, but he sure as hell could move small objects. Fast. And accurately. He could plant a shiv in your throat from across the Yard. In fact, he'd done just that to three dumb-fool guards who hadn't got with the program. Thor had his hammer; Marcus had any sharp or blunt instrument. He could slice and dice you or beat you like a fucking drum.
Steven Jackson was another brother. A book-lovin', chess-playin', history-studyin' motherfucker. Steven had always been smart. Now he was smart. Maybe too smart. He could see through shit, and he knew exactly what Thomas's ass was up to. Might know it before Thomas did. And another thing: Steven couldn't be commanded. That made him dangerous. But it also made him an ace in the hole if they ran up against someone else with command powers. Thomas was glad he'd always treated the boy good – he reminded him of his little bro' Terry – because he sure as hell wouldn't want him for an enemy. That boy could bring it all down on us, he thought, without us even seeing how he did it.
These were the cream of the crop, far as Thomas could see. 'Course, he might've missed something. Some of the new abilities weren't exactly obvious. A couple of guards had abilities that had been obvious – one dude could fly, and the other move in fast-motion – but Thomas had locked them down quick. That was the winning edge, even against people a lot stronger than he was. If and when he met another of his kind – Steven assured him that was pretty likely - things could get real interesting.
It was gratifying that Steven certified his plan of going right to the top. He confirmed Thomas's own argument that they were on borrowed time, that the spread of the superpower virus or whatever it was would soon become exponential. Since they were the first to receive the device's blessing, they had the first chance to make their powers count. Once they had the President and Congress under their spell – commanders of the strongest country in the world – they had "maximal leverage," as Steven put it. Thomas interpreted that as "fucking golden."
His first instinct after the breakout was to head out to blond bitch teacher's place and plant her tight little blond ass in the dirt. Six feet down in the dirt. Maybe she could handle Boulder, maybe not, but she sure as hell couldn't handle the four of them, not to mention the whole flock. But first things first.
Thomas's only regret was his little brother's refusal to get with the program. Boy thought Thomas was crazy to think he could get away with his vision, and even crazier for a black man to order people around – to treat them like slaves. "A tad inconsistent, would you say?" Thomas had resisted an urge to make Terry slap himself repeatedly upside his nappy little head. A "tad"? A black man had no business using sissy white words like that. Thomas had also wrestled with the temptation to just order his brother into the fold. A few simple words would do it. But he couldn’t make himself say those words. Too damn sentimental, he guessed. Ain't right to mess with family. But there were more important things than family now.
He made up his mind then not to let sentiment, family, or anything else get in the way of what needed to get done.
"DID THEY send you here to sweet-talk me?"
Zach knew she'd suspect that, and he'd prepared an answer, but he couldn't stop his guilty smile. Once again, it seemed that with Jamie Shepherd honesty was the best policy. And her own smile suggested she wasn't entirely displeased by the prospect.
"You got me," he chuckled. "You sure you don't read minds, too?"
"What's going on isn't exactly subtle. And I'm very gratefu
l I can't hear other people's thoughts. I think that would be a nightmare."
"I know it's a nightmare to be around someone who can do that."
Jamie laughed. She caught herself playing with her hair and forced her hands onto her lap. It was 84 degrees and blue-skied, a perfect afternoon for sitting outside in the shade with a tall glass of iced tea in hand. Sometimes Jamie wondered if she even had to eat and drink. She's experimented going a day without either water or food and couldn't detect any difference in her body. Maybe she took her nutrition from the sun, like Superman? Jamie couldn't recall if he ever ate or performed normal body functions. She knew she didn't need to breathe – at least she could get away without breathing for fairly long periods. And excretion of any kind had gradually stopped. Were her insides drying up or altering into something different altogether?
For some reason the idea of not eating, breathing, or drinking scared her more than the prospect of a world that was changing perhaps forever. On the plus side, it was kind of nice not to need to use the "little girl's room" any more.
How all that related to the handsome man sitting next to her and his proposition was unclear. Did she want to submit to rigorous testing? To align herself with President Morgan and his administration? She hadn't voted for him – despite being a Republican he was a bit too friendly toward gun control and too loose about the Constitution, in her opinion – but he wasn't the worst person to ever occupy the Oval Office. Something did have to be done about the "augmented people problem," as they were describing it. Now that she had her property back – the Jacobsons had been overjoyed to sell it for $50K above their purchase price - and was healthy, maybe it was time to think beyond her selfish concerns and help her country? Plus, they did give her two million dollars when they could have purchased the object for much less.
And it didn't hurt that they'd sent such an attractive messenger.
As if he'd read her mind, Zach Walters reached over from his chair and touched her shoulder.
"Jamie, there is something I should mention before I go further into my sales pitch," he said. "I don't know how much you've been communicating with your dad in China, but we just learned that their exhibition games have been halted and his team has been detained by the authorities."
"Detained?" Visions of grim-faced Chinese interrogators and water torture filled her head. "Why?"
"We don't know. Our ambassador is meeting with them as we speak. The speculation is that the Chinese government witnessed displays of athleticism or perhaps more that caused suspicion."
Jamie was sitting so rigidly in her chair that she wondered if a sudden move might shatter her allegedly tough as steel body.
"I'm sorry, Jamie," Zach said. "I know this is already an incredibly weird time for you, and I hate to add this to it. On the other hand, it's not as though the Chinese government is going to harm a bunch of NBA players. At worst there might be a political snafu of sorts, and their return might be delayed a bit, but they'll be fine."
Jamie nodded. She couldn't believe her dad and his teammates were in actual danger. By slow degrees, her body relaxed.
Zach touched her shoulder again, and Jamie opened her mouth, not so much to speak as to gasp at the intense tingling his fingers had caused in her arm – a near-electric shock that almost made her jerk away. Be careful. You might twitch and break his hand. Jamie had an unpleasant vision of being in a man's embrace – perhaps this man's embrace – and making a wrong or too enthusiastic move. I might break more than a hand.
She had the thoroughly depressing thought that she might never make love again. Depressing – and disturbing that she was even thinking such thoughts. Jamie hadn't imagined being with another man since Dennis and Kylee's death. But her need to be comforted – perhaps because of her father, perhaps because of everything – had become a living, breathing, fire-breathing monster. She had to be very careful here.
"Everything is changing so fast I feel like I'm on a carnival ride." She pushed the words out – focusing on them and not the buzzing that had spread from her arm to her upper chest. What if it kept spreading downward? Would she explode into space? Jamie clenched her jaw and willed the sensations and her emotional neediness away.
"Yeah," Zack chuckled. "It's been that way for me, too. And I don't have a superpower. Not one that I know of, anyway."
"Have they made any progress with the cylinder?"
"Not that I've heard. Other than knowing the basic nanite mechanism." He shrugged. "They don't know what the Object's made of, what's powering it, or what its purpose is."
"Do they think it just crashed here randomly or were we targeted?"
"If the people studying it have any theories about that, I haven't heard them. I'm sure they're proceeding on a need-to-know basis, and I'm not someone who needs to know much."
"Do they have a basic plan how to deal with this? Or is that 'need-to-know,' too?"
"All I know is they're creating a special commission to study the whole phenomenon, including the social aspect. I doubt very much they'll let me have anything to do with that. Once they have you in their clutches – if you agree to work with them – I'm sure I'll be returned to my DHS lab in the sub-basement."
"Unless I request that you keep, um, working with me." Jamie averted her eyes from his earnest gaze. "I mean, I'd like someone I trust to be there during this process."
Zach nodded with slow uncertainty. His first choice would've been to work on the project as the biochemist he was, but he knew he couldn't make the grade at this elite level. They had the best scientists in the country burning the midnight oil with this thing. No, unless he could prove his worth, he'd be sent back to the minor leagues. He wasn't sure what they'd do with him if Jamie actually did insist on him sticking around, but he was sure they'd do almost anything to avoid alienating her.
And the prospect of continuing to work with Jamie Shepherd seemed in that moment every bit as alluring as working on the project itself.
"I have a feeling at this point they'll give you pretty much anything you ask for," Zach said. "And in all honesty, I can't think of anything I'd rather do than continue working in some capacity on this."
"Well, if I do agree to work with them, I'll make that a condition."
"That's very kind of you."
Jamie regarded him with candid blue eyes and a dry smile. He chuckled under his breath and averted his gaze to the front driveway.
"What's it like?" he asked. "Having such power, I mean."
"You mean physically? Or mentally?"
"Both. But physically, for starters."
"It's like waking up at sixteen full of energy and not a pain in your body and feeling immortal."
"I vaguely remember those days," said Zach with a smile.
"Mentally..." Jamie shrugged. "It's unnerving not knowing what's going to happen. Is the nanomachine virus going to infect almost everyone, or will it stop spreading before that point? If it does infect most people, what will happen to the world? Will we fight each other or work together to create better societies? In the meantime, I can do some pretty crazy stuff, but what should I do with it?" She smiled at him. "Such are the thoughts of my days. Long days, since I barely sleep anymore."
"That's basically what they're asking in Washington," said Zach. "It's an open question how it's going to turn out, and whether it will be for the better or worse. The consensus is that we're going to fail to contain it, and that we need to make the best of it – use the 'augmented people' for the good of our country rather than fight with them."
"For what it's worth, I think that's the right idea. My brother believes they'll attempt to round us all up in detention camps and reprogram us or something."
"That was on the table. But cooler heads prevailed. So far."
"It might not be easy to do that." Jamie was frowning.
"You're right. It could be damn dangerous. Who knows what we'd come up against?"
"You'd definitely be up against me."
Zach tried no
t to take that literally. "I think that's a big part of what they're afraid of."
Chapter 11
THOMAS WORE A GRIN as big as a white shark's – and just as amicable – as Steven drove their Caddie up to the E Street checkpoint on the south side of the White House.
"This is for you, Miriam," he said in a deep, solemn voice. "This is for you, baby."
"Who's Miriam?" asked Boulder, hulking in the back seat behind him.
"Just another in a long line of my brothers and sisters who got murdered because some pigs didn't like their color. They were on a roll that year. First they killed her, then Michael Brown, and then Eric Garner."
They cruised up to the checkpoint. A Secret Service agent approached the car. Thomas rolled down the window.
"You'll need to turn your car around, sir," the agent informed him. "This is a restricted area."
"I got all the clearance I need, my man. See it?" He held up his large, empty hand. "Everything's in order. I'm an honored guest of the President. We be playing a round of golf later. Or maybe some b-ball."
The agent squinted at Thomas's palm, frowning a moment as if he were straining to make out the fine print on the imaginary pass before stepping back and waving them in.
"Man, I gotta hand it to you," Tyler rumbled at his side, a cautious grin breaking the usual granite mold of his face. "This is one sweet ride."
"Right up into the living room of the Man himself," Thomas chuckled.
"Still can't shake the feeling that someone's gonna stop us."
"I'd almost like to see someone try, my brother."
If they did, it sure as hell wouldn't go down like with Miriam Carey or that Rodriquez fool, who ran halfway through the White House before someone stopped him. Boulder could level the whole damn white man's palace if it came to that. Redman Dylan could flatten any Secret Service agent with a quick squeezing or poking of that creepy effigy he kept his front pocket. Marcus could turn their bullets or guns on them or skewer them with branches from a nearby tree. He wasn't sure what Tyler could do, except maybe tell them how all the "patterns" were adding up and whether they threatened them or not. He was more a big-picture kind of brother. Steven... Thomas chuckled to himself. The brainiac probably could pose a word puzzle to the guards that would fry their brains.
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